frequently asked questions

Where do you get the data for the Buzz Index?

The data is collected from Yahoo! search log files. The Yahoo! Buzz Index counts the total number of people searching for specific subjects. Individual users and their searches remain completely anonymous.

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What is a buzz mover?

Buzz movers are the subjects with the greatest percentage increase in buzz score from one day to the next.

Significant increases in buzz score do not necessarily indicate huge overall interest in a subject. Greatest overall buzz is reflected by the list of buzz leaders.

For example, a subject that increases its buzz score from 4.0 to 12.0 would have a one-day buzz move of 200%, which might qualify it for inclusion on the list of buzz movers. However, that same subject, with a buzz of 12.0, might not make that day's list of buzz leaders.

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What is a buzz leader?

Buzz leaders are the subjects with the greatest buzz score on a given day. These subjects are the most searched subjects on Yahoo! for that day.

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What do the numbers mean?

A subject's buzz score is the percentage of users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read.

More precisely, each point is equal to 0.001% of users searching on Yahoo! on a given day. For example, a buzz score of 500 for "Pokemon" translates to 0.5% of all users searching on Yahoo!

For buzz movers, the number displayed is the percentage increase in the subject's buzz score from the previous day.

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Is anything filtered out?

Company names (such as Yahoo!), utilities and formats (email, MP3), and general terms (movies, downloads, football) are filtered out by the editors of the Yahoo! Buzz Index. The editors' goal is to list subjects that are interesting to the broadest possible audience. To this end, terms related to adults-only content are also excluded.

In some cases, the editors may also exclude terms that they believe have been elevated by similarity to unrelated popular terms. For example, the movie The Rock might be excluded if the buzz was determined to be solely generated by interest in the WWF star, The Rock.

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How often is the site updated?

The Yahoo! Buzz Index is published Tuesday through Saturday. All the rankings on the Yahoo! Buzz Index -- both movers and leaders -- are updated each weekday and reflect the traffic from two days earlier. For example, Wednesday's Buzz Index reflects Monday's searches and clicks. (Twenty-four hours are required to process data and verify results.)

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What does "Days on Chart" mean?

"Days on Chart" refers to the number of days a term has been one of the top 50 terms in a Buzz Leader category (overall, movies, television, music, sports). Note that we use the top 50 terms to track longevity, rather than just the top 20 that are displayed on the site. Days are calculated from January 1, 2001.

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What do the arrows on Buzz Leaders mean?

The arrows reflect changes in rank for buzz terms. Green arrows indicate a move up in the rankings, while red arrows indicate a move down. The arrows don't reflect the direction or amount of change in a term's overall buzz score.

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What does the "Move" column on Buzz Leaders mean?

The move number reflects the change in a term's buzz score. Positive move numbers are green and negative move numbers are red. While these numbers can sometimes indicate a trend in the popularity of a buzz term, they are also affected by the overall traffic patterns of users on a particular day. (For example, searches on Sunday differ greatly in character and variety from those made on Mondays.)

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What does "Prev. Rank" mean?

"Prev. Rank" shows where a current buzz term was ranked in the previous day's buzz index. The number may be anywhere from 1 to 50, or, if a term is new to the buzz, it will be indicated with a dash.

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What does "Breakout!" mean?

When a term goes from very few searches to a large number of searches, we refer to it as a Breakout!. Most movers have been searched for previously, which means the increase in searches on the term can be expressed in a percentage. Breakout! terms have a huge percentage increase because of the small number of searches from the previous day. Breakout! terms head straight to the top of the list of movers.

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