Who does Google like the most – Julia or Tony?

Google is being used for respectable academic research on issues like economic activity and health epidemics (for example, see this paper on how the recession in the US is impacting concern for the environment), so I thought I’d see how Julia Gillard is faring in terms of internet interest compared with Tony Abbott.

The first graph compares Google searches on ‘Gillard’ (red) and ‘Abbott’ (blue) over the last 30 days (up to August 1) within Australia.

Google says the numbers on the graph “reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don’t represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. When we don’t have enough data, 0 is shown”. Read the rest of this entry »