Google Hits

[SkepticJ]

Are Google hit numbers a decent barometer of how widely known any given thing is, or is there a lot of error in using it that way? Certain things are greater attractors than others for being mentioned on the internet?

For example: "Dark Knight" returns approx. 9 x 10^7 hits.

Most people on Earth, hundreds of millions without access to the internet, are at least aware of Batman, even if they haven't partaken of any of the movies, comics, etc.

Even with that, that's one internet hit for every 77.7 people on Earth. For a moniker of a fictional character.

In contrast, "Rzeppa joint" returns 28,400 hits. A mechanical device that must be in hundreds of millions of automobiles on Earth.

But most people probably know them as CV joints, without caring if they're a Cardan, or whatever.

"CV boot" gets 2,950,000 hits, and only Rzeppas need boots. So search terms on closely related things can sometimes give wildly different results; one needs to be careful.

[Solfe]

I would say that they are a very imprecise gauge of how much things are talked about. The issue with Google is that you can be "bubbled" if you are logged in. Bubbled results are current results based on prior searches.

Were I to search on Sylvia, I would likely have my aunt's family tree blog come up first while my wife would get Sylvia Brown's official website.

When you log out or use something like Duckduckgo, you will get completely different results.

[Trebuchet]

But most people probably know them as CV joints, without caring if they're a Cardan, or whatever.

Sorry for the pedantry, but I AM after all a mechanical engineer! Cardan joints are definitely NOT CV joints -- CV stands for "Constant Velocity", which Cardan joints can't do. They impose a sinsusoidal speed variation on the output unless the shafts are so perfectly aligned that no joint is actually required.

There are other types of CV joints as well, see Wikipedia.

"CV joint" returns 12,000,000 hits in Google.

[HenrikOlsen]

Whereas the Rzeppa joint IS a CV joint so it's perfectly natural to have hits to CV covering the Rzeppa.

[SkepticJ]

Sorry for the pedantry, but I AM after all a mechanical engineer! Cardan joints are definitely NOT CV joints -- CV stands for "Constant Velocity", which Cardan joints can't do. They impose a sinsusoidal speed variation on the output unless the shafts are so perfectly aligned that no joint is actually required.

I was thinking double-Cardans, but didn't write that.

That Thompson coupling on the wiki page is pretty spiffy.

[Nicolas]

Also take language into account. In some non-english countries they still talk about the "Dark Knight", while they do use a translation for a CV joint.

[grapes]

Are Google hit numbers a decent barometer of how widely known any given thing is, or is there a lot of error in using it that way? Certain things are greater attractors than others for being mentioned on the internet?

For example: "Dark Knight" returns approx. 9 x 10^7 hits.

Most people on Earth, hundreds of millions without access to the internet, are at least aware of Batman, even if they haven't partaken of any of the movies, comics, etc.

Even with that, that's one internet hit for every 77.7 people on Earth. For a moniker of a fictional character.

In contrast, "Rzeppa joint" returns 28,400 hits. A mechanical device that must be in hundreds of millions of automobiles on Earth.

But most people probably know them as CV joints, without caring if they're a Cardan, or whatever.

I was kinda curious why you didn't search for "batman"? I got . . . wait! My google didn't return total hits. Maybe it's no longer a valid statistic :)