Web search volume as a predictor of academic fame: An exploration of Google trends

Searches conducted on web search engines reflect the interests of users and society. G oogle Trends, which provides information about the queries searched by users of the G oogle web search engine, is a rich data source from which a wealth of information can be mined. We investigated the possibility of using web search volume data from G oogle Trends to predict academic fame. As queries are language‐dependent, we studied universities from two countries with different languages, the U nited S tates and S pain. We found a significant correlation between the search volume of a university name and the university's academic reputation or fame. We also examined the effect of some G oogle Trends features, namely, limiting the search to a specific country or topic category on the search volume data. Finally, we examined the effect of university sizes on the correlations found to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the relationships.