What are the top 10 searches in the Google search engine of interest to private investigators? The new Google product, Google Insights, is a Web site optimization tool, or just an amusing time-waster, depending on your inclination.

I searched the phrase “find my”, which returned top searches, listing, “find my ip” and “find my way” — humm, either part of a song or someone who’s lost? It also gave me related terms and “rising searches”, number 6 being “find a person”. Each phrase is assigned a value, 1 to 100, the higher number correlates with more search queries. See the volume plotted on a graph, mapped by region or in a state list. The search can be filtered by state, category or specific dates. Interesting factoid: the number of queries with the phrase “find a person” has declined since 2004.

Search terms related to find a person:

Top searches

1. find people 100
2. person search 85
3. find phone number 80
4. find address 80
5. find someone 30
6. locate a person 20
7. find an address 20

Continue to drill through related terms to phrase searches that are on the uptick, such as “people finders“.