« Searchme Releases Mobile App for Android | Main | Hulu Grows 490% in 1 Year, According to Nielsen »
May 13, 2009
Google Begins Health Search Experiment
Google has started a search experiment in relation to health-related queries. The experiment involves a survey, which is triggered by a small percentage of random health searches. The survey will ask whether or not a searcher is looking up a topic because s/he or a friend/relative is experiencing those symptoms or conditions.
The results will be used to help Google provide more relevant data related to public health. You may remember last year when Google launched Flu Trends. The tool used search trends to help determine where the flu was rearing its ugly head.
Of course, with the latest public health problem being the swine flu, providing trends wouldn't be so easy. With just around 6,000 cases worldwide, but millions of people talking about (and likely searching for) the swine flu, it would be far more difficult to provide a Swine Flu Trends.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on May 13, 2009 12:19 PM
Comments
Google Begins Asking Some Searchers Who Look For Illness, there are lots of experiments running on Google web search all over the world.
Cheap cars May 14, 2009 2:05 AM
The results will be used to help Google provide more relevant data related to public health. You may remember last year when Google launched Flu Trends.
Kay May 14, 2009 2:41 PM
Swine flu is now worldwide. So the main issue is when a vaccine will be available, and what can be done in the meantime.
michael July 24, 2009 3:05 PM
