How to find stats for general trends of programming language popularity using google trends

Question

I like to keep an eye on trending browsers/OSs/languages etc... I find google trends is a very useful resource sometimes but other times I can not get the information I want.

Example of very clear increase of Ubuntu (with 6 monthly peaks near release dates) compared with other major linux distros ecline over the years...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+debian%2C+redhat%2C+mandrake&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Example of results that are skewed because of non-programming related events. See "flash floods" and "earthquake in Java" in the news results

http://www.google.com/trends?q=flash%2C+java%2C+javascript&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Is there a way to filter the results better to only include Java the programming language, and make sure that it catches all variations of a name - for example js instead of javascript, or an alternative tool that can produce similar graphical trend data.

Chorus

What's wrong with Tiobe? – Ivelisseivens

Like said by @Bas have a look at Tiobe... And just to say, your first graph absolutely doesn't show a decline of other distros in general, only the relative decrease of search volume to Ubuntu. ie more people search for Ubuntu than for Debian, but maybe there's much more search for debian in 2011 than in 2006. This can be explained for example by the fact that Ubuntu is for newcomers and Debian more server oriented, but says nothing about the user base size. – Skylab

@Skylab I agree that there can be no concrete conclusions drawn, but it is worth noting that there is a decline in searches for Debian, that the graph is not showing relative, but absolute search volume – Chorus

@Billy it's not absolute : "Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of ubuntu in all years." You can read the related help : google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html#7 – Skylab

@Skylab - as I understand it, the scale is relative to average traffic for time period specified, but the data for 'debian' is relative only to itself, and not relative to other search terms. If you search trends for debian on it's own, you see the same shape graph showing search volume declines. – Chorus

This should be on webapps.stackexchange.com – Enfield

Answer 1

It is possible to exclude terms with a minus sign and use | for variants:

flash -flood, java -crash -quake, javascript +js

But if you want accuracy it would be better to use the Language Popularity Index (or Tiobe as Bas suggests).

Readjustment

Answer 2

Such "metrics" have questionable value (but are fun to discuss). You could add a word like "program" to each language: http://www.google.com/trends?q=flash+program%2C+java+program%2C+javascript+program&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1

Manganin