I’m not sure what they’re plotting there. I doubt that Google has access to traffic data for each of those sites. I imagine they’re plotting the number of visits to those sites which came from a Google search result. In this case it might just mean that a news site’s PageRank determines its placement in the search listing for a news-related query, ignoring the case where searches are tweaked for specific queries and/or at specific times.

If it plots visits, I imagine that Al Jazeera and BBC switch places if you compare data from only the Middle East. (And similarly, you get a lot fewer Al Jazeera hits for citizens of the UK)

Google Zeitgeist graphs promise a lot, and spark a few ideas and scenarios, but when “push comes to shove” the lack of details (at least axis labels) mean that we can’t go beyond speculations.

P.S. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Gabriel, my guess is that the graphs plot searches. And I too would like to see some indication of scale in them.

Showing off my elitism, and presuming that these graphs are restricted to the United States or North America at most, I wonder what it says for the health of the Republic that under the Google News category, not only were Katrina and the tsunami the only “real” news items, but that Janet Jackson topped the chart.