Trending Now: Stay on Top of Google Search Trends

Welcome to another episode of Google Trends tutorials.
I'm Daniel Waisberg, search advocate at Google.
I'm Hadas Jacobi, software engineer on the Google Trends team.
In this video, we'll talk about ways for you
to stay on top of what's happening in Google Search.
We'll take a different approach to analyzing search trends.
Instead of finding data for terms and topics you're interested in,
we'll start with the rising trend in terms and from there,
we'll narrow down to related terms that might be interesting to you.
Everything you need to never miss a trend again.
In previous episodes,
we discussed ways to analyze historical data using the explore page.
That's where you can compare search terms,
check their trends in different locations and also review related queries and topics.
In this episode,
instead of looking at search terms you're interested in,
we'll take a reverse approach.
As Daniel mentioned,
we'll look at the latest trends to understand what's new and how it relates to your goals.
This can be helpful to come up with content ideas for your site
or to inform your company's marketing strategy.
When you visit trends.google.com, you'll find a section named Trending Now.
There's a lot of information on this page.
So let's take a closer look at it.
Each row in the table represents a search term
that is trending.
Here, you'll find search volume showing an approximate number
of actual Google searches.
This is different from the search interest metric
we've explained in previous episodes.
Just under the search volume
you'll see how much the volume has grown
compared to the predicted search volume.
Next, you'll find the time when this trend started.
This can be really helpful.
If you're monitoring current events like elections, Olympic Games
or any major happening.
In the status marker,
you'll see active for search terms
that are still being searched more than usual,
like breaking news, or ended for search queries
that are now back to their typical search volume,
such as the end of an awards show.
Lastly, you'll see a line chart also called the spark line
showing the past 24 hours for a trend.
If the chart is green,
it means that the term is still trending.
And if it's gray, it means the trend has ended.
If you click a search term,
you'll get more details about the trend such as a breakdown
and news stories related to that trend.
That's a pretty useful table.
I love the spark lines almost as much as scatterplots.
Filtering can really help you find the data you need.
You probably noticed all the filters at the top of the table.
Let's go through them one by one.
The filters in the Trending Now section
are similar to the ones on the explore page which we discussed in previous episodes.
You can start with the country whose top trends you'd like to check out.
You can choose a time frame based on when a search term
started trending.
Each time frame can serve a different purpose.
For example, if you're writing an article
about the trending topics during the first week of the Olympic Games,
you would look at the past seven days instead of the past hour.
You can choose to look at all trends or just at the active ones.
Looking at the trends that have already ended
might not be important in some cases,
but it could bring additional context about what's changing over time.
You can also sort the table in various ways.
If you're looking for the highest number of absolute searches,
you would sort it by volume.
If you're looking for the freshest trends,
you would sort by recency.
Or you can sort by relevance, which is a combination of both.
And lastly, you'll notice an export button.
This can be handy if you'd like to analyze
and visualize the data available using different tools.
You should give it a try.
Those lazy glasses are so cool, Daniel.
I know. Everyone is searching for them on Google trends now.
Interesting. Can you show me the filters you used?
I'll share a link with you.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Trending Now is an important part of our tool and can be very insightful
when looking for ideas to create new content and understand your audience.
In the next episodes, we'll talk about specific use cases
like Google Trends for SEOs for journalists and more.
Stay tuned.