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Google Searches for fanfic
I started my collection of fanfiction statistics with Karen Nicholas' site. When it became clear that it was not being updated and was probably not going to be updated for a long time or maybe ever, I decided to collect comparative data from a source stable enough to do longitudinal studies. I picked Google!. Data as of 9/26/00:
Here are the top ten fandoms by total hits:
| source | "fan fiction"+ | ff+slash | % slash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Star Trek |
19100
|
1780
|
9.3
|
| Star Wars |
18400
|
1260
|
6.8
|
| X-Files |
14600
|
1900
|
13.0
|
| Xena |
13600
|
3001
|
22.1
|
| Buffy |
12100
|
1210
|
10.0
|
| Sailor Moon |
10500
|
723
|
6.9
|
| Pokemon |
10200
|
503
|
4.9
|
| ER |
9460
|
663
|
7.0
|
| Final Fantasy |
7550
|
517
|
6.8
|
| X-Men |
6980
|
517
|
7.4
|
You really want to look at the more complete results:
fandoms with more than 1000 hits
fandoms with more than 200 slash hits
all other fandoms I searched
My paper, The Fan Fiction Universe, discusses a few of the patterns in this data, especially the explosive growth of anime/manga/game fandoms, music group fandoms, and Harry Potter.
It was my plan to re-run these Google searches from time to time, to chart how different fandom popularity grows and wanes. But I started to realize I had some real methodological problems.
For the data above, I ran two searches on each fandom:
"fan fiction" [fandom name]and"fan fiction" [fandom name] slash
For anime and manga fandoms I ran two additional searches:
"fan fiction" [fandom name] yaoiIn these fandoms, the number in the slash column is actually slash + yaoi - (slash+yaoi).and"fan fiction" [fandom name] slash yaoi
Fooling around with different combinations of terms, I discovered results like this:
| data collected: | 16-Mar-03 | |
| category | term | # Google hits |
| fandom, fic | "Star Wars" "fan fiction" |
46700
|
| "Star Wars" fanfic |
30700
|
|
| "Star Wars" fanfiction |
25800
|
|
| "Star Wars" fanfic -"fan fiction" |
21500
|
|
| "Star Wars" fanfiction -"fan fiction" -fanfic |
14100
|
|
| Venn diagram total of the above |
82300
|
|
| "fandom fic" | "Star Wars fan fiction" |
2090
|
| "Star Wars fanfic" |
775
|
|
| "Star Wars fanfiction" |
556
|
|
| fandom, fic, slash | "Star Wars" "fan fiction" slash |
2850
|
| "Star Wars" fanfic slash |
2850
|
|
| "Star Wars" fanfiction slash |
2590
|
|
| fandom/slash | "Star Wars" slash |
27700
|
| "Star Wars" yaoi |
3040
|
|
| "Star Wars slash" |
205
|
|
| "Star Wars yaoi" |
13
|
|
| "Star Wars" slash - fanfiction -fanfic -"fan fiction" |
21400
|
|
| pairing | TPM "Q/O" |
3310
|
| "Star Wars" "Q/O" |
521
|
|
| "Phantom Menace" "Q/O" |
145
|
So we see here that
a) Most "Star Wars" sites that mention fanfiction, fan fiction, or fanfic use only one of those terms, pretty much arbitrarily.
b) only a small proportion of those sites use e.g. "Star Wars" and "fan fiction" use the full phrase, "Star Wars fan fiction". Are there consistent content differences between these sites? Anyone want to find out?
c) there are a lot of sites that use "Star Wars" and "slash" but not fanfic terms. Glancing at the results, "slash" seems to be turning up a lot in non-fanfic contexts, especially with regard to "hack and slash" gaming.
d) An awful lot of Q/O sites don't mention "Star Wars" or "Phantom Menace," only TPM. Could these mostly be recs or fandom butterfly sites?
e) I have no clue what is the best way to get statistical data via searches. Advice? Commiseration?