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Searching for Deliveries
Google’s index showed British delivery searches increasing.
A BBC article stated:
Online searches for cream teas and afternoon teas to be delivered have surged since the UK went into lockdown, search data has suggested.
That claim refers to Google searches. This article looks at indices.
What is an index?
An index is a measure of relative change. A value is set, and then we observe changes over time or other differences. If an index is 100 at one point, then we see the value of 107: that means the value has increased by 7%.
The Google Trends tool allows people to access an index of search activity on Google. In Google Trends, the highest volume for search terms is set at 100.
Google provide a rounded figure for their trend index. That means if a daily index was 20, it was around 20% of the highest volume. A value of 20 may represent between 19.6% and 20.4%.
In particular, if the indexed value was 0: that does not mean no-one searched for that term. The search volume was less than 0.5% of the highest volume in the study period.
Google provides an imperfect sample of their massive search database. That sample excludes very limited searches and duplicate searches in short periods. In addition, it also excludes queries with special characters.
