Google Insights for Search is an interesting tool, it allows you to take a look at what people are serching for in different parts of the world and how is the volume of search evolving for a keyword in a specific part of the world or worldwide.
I played a bit with Google Insights and after a while i tought i check how PHP search volume is evolving, after all i work with PHP and i wanted to see what is graph for the popularity of this language. I must say i was shocked. The interest over time from 2004 to 2008 is declining, rapidly i could say. But don’t take my word for it, check in Google Insights, or here is the picture (click on it for better quality):
I don’t understand this decline as interest for many PHP applications are increasing sharply in this period, you could check Google Insights for WordPress , Joomla or other PHP based applications.
The only thing i could think about is the proliferation of these already built web apps, that are downloaded and installed, in many cases the users get an already functional application so they don’t have to bother do understand or learn about PHP. Back in the times when you needed a CMS or a website you had to build it yourself using PHP or at least you needed to have some PHP knowledge to install it. Now with the advanced click click next next installers users don’t need to know anything about PHP.
What is your opinion on this ?
Laszlo Bodor
4 comments
That’s because Ruby is better and it will replace PHP as the language of choice for web programmers.
I guess not, if you check stats for Ruby in Google Insights you will see that Ruby is not even close to PHP.
I actually think the decline is natural based on the ease of information access now. I think less searching is done on many (once popular topics) due to the fact that the prerequisite information for things like this is so much easier to find. Search for “php framework” or “cake php” etc and you will see that the interest has actually risen substantially. I think this is due to a natural progression from words to phrases (all language evolves, even internet-speak).
As humans we started with grunts and sounds, and now we speak in thousands of dialects and languages. Trying to find out what happened to the grunts and sounds is hard now, as language has simply evolved, so although grunting isn’t “popular”, speaking still is…
This doesn’t necessarily reflect the interest on php. In the last 2-3 years the development of PHP based applications has gone over like anything. Just search for cms, frameworks, blogs, forums –everywhere you’ll get the sound of PHP. So there’s nothing to be disappointed.