How this is measured
The Local Opportunity Index blends several independent signals into a single, explainable picture of how much attention a local business category is getting — and who's capturing it. No single source measures "popularity"; agreement across signals is what makes the read trustworthy.
The signals
Google search demand and trend for the category and its top keywords, by location.
How much people are looking things up online beyond search — encyclopedic and reference interest.
Volume and tone of press coverage mentioning the category in the area.
Ratings, review counts, review velocity, and Maps visibility for the leading businesses.
The interest index
Each signal is normalized and blended into a 0–100 interest index. We also classify a trajectory — exploding, growing, steady, peaked, or declining — from the recent slope, and flag spikes ("pops") when attention jumps well above its normal range.
Freshness
Pages refresh monthly today. Higher-velocity categories will move to weekly, and select signals (like review counts) to near-daily, as the data pipeline scales.