What it measures. How hard South Africans are searching for information about buying a specific franchise. It is a demand signal from prospective buyers, not a measure of a brand’s sales, quality or profitability.
Source. Google Trends search interest, South Africa, for the exact terms listed below, all requested in a single batch so the series are directly comparable with each other.
Headline index. The average momentum of every category that carries enough search signal to index. It answers one question: how hard is South Africa shopping for franchises right now, against the past year?
Category momentum. A category’s franchise-search interest over the last three months, measured against its own trailing 12-month average, in monthly buckets, and indexed so 100 = level with the past year. A reading of 150 means buyers are searching half again as much as they did over the past year; 74 means interest has cooled by about a quarter.
Why categories are comparable. Google Trends scores from separate requests are not comparable with each other. Momentum is, because every category is measured only against itself before being compared.
Brand scores. Each brand’s share of its category’s franchise-search interest over the trailing quarter, rescaled so the category leader scores 100.
When we publish no number at all. Some categories are searched too rarely for an honest index: with a near-zero baseline, ordinary noise produces absurd multiples. Where fewer than half the months in the last two years carry any signal, we publish “not enough search signal” instead of a momentum reading. Brand shares are still measured, because relative share stays meaningful where absolute volume does not.
Why some brands show “<1”. Google Trends is relative. Where a brand’s franchise-search volume is very low next to the category leader, it rounds to zero. We publish “<1” rather than 0, because near-invisible search interest is not the same as none.
Cadence. Collected automatically every Monday morning and published with the day’s Brief. Readings are appended, never rewritten, so the history stays honest.
Coverage. Categories are added as we go. Each new category starts its own history from its first reading, and the headline index only counts categories that clear the signal test above.
What this index cannot tell you
- It does not measure how many people actually bought a franchise.
- Search interest in a brand does not mean franchises are available: a brand can attract heavy interest and release almost no new outlets.
- Brand-name searches can be driven by news or advertising rather than buying intent, which is why we track “brand franchise” terms rather than brand names alone.
What is coming
Later versions will blend in first-party signal from Franchise Hub itself, starting with reader polls and, in time, listing and enquiry activity. Any change to the method will be dated and described on this page.