Okay, today’s agenda is very simple – describe Web History using my account as an example, then give my personal opinion on its usefulness. Feel free to add yours in the comments.
First off, the brief introduction to Google Web History. Basically, Google records all searches made by anyone logged in with a Google account (johndoe @ gmail.com). For instance, if I search for “downtown cafe ottawa”, Google will store that in Web History. If I then click on a few of the results, Google will store which ones I visited. Of course, I have to be logged in to Google for any of this to happen.
Good? Bad? That’s for another paragraph. Until then, if I want to view my searches for some reason, maybe to remember a particular result of that search, I simply visit google.com/history. Tada, every single search I’ve made since, in my case, June 2007, along with which results I clicked on. Plus, every single image, video, map, book, blog, and news search I’ve made too.
Hmm, I’ve done 18894 searches? It sounds like a lot, so I pick a month and go back to early December 2007. Oh, of course, I was doing research for that crazy history essay, and the searches reflect that. For instance, “council trent summary”, “anathema”, and “footnote style”. Later I was apparently studying for my Java final. I asked Google about things like “java 6 docs” and “ascii character table.”
What’s really terrifying is that I remember actually typing a lot a fair number of these queries! The math is also surprising: 18994 searches over 18 months is 1,055 a month or 35 a day. I’ve hit 150+ a few times, and rarely drop to zero.
One last point of interest is the “Trends” view, which you can get to by a link on the left of the page. You’ll see lists of your top searches as well as three really cool bar graphs showing your usage by month, day, and hour. Here are mine:
That hourly graph is the best, I think – there’s a really definite pattern there. But…this is getting pretty long now, so I’m going to wrap up. Personally, I think the graphs and other trend tools are neat, but not worth the un-privacy factor of giving Google literally a picture of my life 35 times a day. The reason I’ve kept this going for 18 months is for these graphs, but now I have them, so I’m quitting. Are you? Say why or why not in a comment below.
Fascinating. I have held off registering w Google just to be ornery, but I suppose they have all my info anyway. I like how you can see your hourly and daily breakdown. If I register, say, today, would I be able to see my past months and years of Googling? If not, then I won’t register at all, even though “they” get to keep all my info. At least I can pretend “they” don’t have my official permission to keep tabs on me. Agh.
Oh, another question– what does “hood” mean on your flying hours breakdown, in another post? Merci.
Google only records queries (well, officially!) when a person is logged in with their Google account, so if you have never logged in before, you will not have a history like mine. Â I suppose that’s a good thing.
And “hood” instrument time is time spent flying with an instructor while wearing special “foggles” that restrict my vision to only the instrument panel. Â The term hood is just a holdover.