Comments on: Google Ranks Jesus and Church by City

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:49:33 +0000

Like you said, stats are what we make of them. If we google specific words, we get those results. Change the parameters, we get different results. I can honestly say that I have not googled church, faith or Jesus in a long time. I have googled specific books of the bible or topics. I have also bookmarked areas that I trust and want to go back to. I do think that there are people out there who operate on a Sunday only type of faith. I also think that there are a lot of people who attend church merely because it is a social outing or the right thing to do.

I had some similar thoughts this morning and posted some comments about the church and if this is what God intended the church to look like. Both from the little c church to the big C church.

Michaels last blog post..Where are weâ€¦

By: Jesse Phillips

Jesse Phillips — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:59:52 +0000

Well, okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so harsh. Love the post, love the conclusion, and the data does seem to support it more than I originally thoguht Jesse Phillipss last blog post..Francisâ€™ Crazy Building Project

By: Jesse Phillips

Jesse Phillips — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:51:15 +0000

I LOVE this post, VERY COOL use of Google Analytics. However, I don’t think tracking the occurences of these words actually shows that we focus on church more than Jesus (although I think we do).

I mean, technically, and from a scientific point of view, this data is not at all evidence for very much other than those words occur more often online. This may have more to do with the necessity of the word, with how many synonyms there are, with how interesting the subject is, how much there is to write about it, how useful it is to write about it online, etc.

Well, anyway. Thanks for this awesome post, still. And I’ll definitely now be checking this blog regularly! I found you from your comment at the catablog

Jesse Phillipss last blog post..Francisâ€™ Crazy Building Project

By: Scott Fillmer

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:44:56 +0000

@heath We can make these charts tell any story we want true, but I had to pick something, but I also know we do this with scripture all the time. I like to call it yellow book scriptures, thumb through until you find something you like. Good points.

By: Heath

Heath — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:35:02 +0000

I like your charts and analysis. I’m not sure your search terms are broad or deep enough to get an accurate view of what people are really looking for via google in terms of church and Jesus. You probably need to compare and contrast with some of the other sins to see a major difference in charts. We can make these charts tell any story we want.
Another explanation is people are trying to find a church to go to on Sundays. If you look at it in these terms it is very encouraging.

Heaths last blog post..Fatherâ€™s Love

By: Scott Fillmer

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:51:09 +0000

True, course I never said it was real scientific or anything, but I think the trends on google are a little more compelling than twitter. Google is going off search terms, not a conversation so that would be what people are looking for without others being involved.

By: Mandy

Mandy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:32:21 +0000

Very interesting. I do think that a lot of us (in my circle anyway) talk about God & Jesus w/ out using those specific words. We post scripture on twitter a lot.