Google Trend Update

Google Trends is a service that can be used to see how popular certain search terms are across geographic regions, cities, and languages. Google updated its Trends tool that allows users to see the popularity of a term and compare the level of interest in favorite topics--or people, such as those who of you who like to Google your name. It has updated its Trends tool, to include numbers.

With the new Google Trends, you can now view the numbers on the graph and can also download them to a spreadsheet.

Google Trends analyzes a portion of the search engine giant's Web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms entered relative to the total number done on Google over time. Based on that information, the Search Volume Index graph charts the results. Users can search up to five terms.

Previously the tool allowed people to view graphs showing trends including how frequently particular key terms were searched for across geographic regions, by different age groups or in different languages, however no numerical data could be inputted.

In the Google Blog, Google has explained the new updates to Google Trends in a very 'delicious' manner. The comparison in the example is between two prominent ice cream flavors, vanilla and chocolate. The aim is to learn as to how many searches are made for each flavor.

A subset of the tool is Google Hot Trends, which shows what people are searching for on the day of their search. Instead of showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms, Hot Trends highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity and updates that information hourly. Google's algorithm analyzes millions of Web searches performed on the search engine and displays the results that deviate the most from their historic traffic pattern. The algorithm also filters out spam and removes inappropriate material.

Now the file can be downloaded allowing users to analyse it along with the numbers involved, although it will remain scaled with relative results rather than actual ones.

Google Trends can be used for fun as well as for a more practical purpose, although users must first sign into their Google account. The search engine company has been busily expanding its brand of late. Earlier in the year it unveiled plans for the creation of Google Health, an online database that gives internet users access to their own medical histories.

Currently, Google Trends is only available in English and in Chinese. Hot Trends is only available in English. The company said it hopes to roll out Google Trends in other regions and languages in the future.