Google Trends

Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over a certain period of time.

On August 5, 2008, Google launched Google Insights for Search, a more sophisticated and advanced service displaying search trends data. On September 27, 2012, Google merged Google Insights for Search into Google Trends.

Originally, Google neglected updating Google Trends on a regular basis. In March 2007, internet bloggers noticed that Google had not added new data since November 2006, and Trends was updated within a week. Google did not update Trends from March until July 30, and only after it was blogged about, again. Google now claims to be "updating the information provided by Google Trends daily; Hot Trends is updated hourly." As of April 2025, data on the Google Trends website shows updates every minute, with a 4 minute delay, when the timeline parameter is set to "Past hour."

On August 6, 2008, Google launched a free service called Insights for Search. Insights for Search is an extension of Google Trends and although the tool is meant for marketers, it can be utilized by any user. The tool allows for the tracking of various words and phrases that are typed into Google's search-box. The tracking device provided a more in-depth analysis of results. It also has the ability to categorize and organize the data, with special attention given to the breakdown of information by geographical areas. In 2012, Google Insights for Search was merged into Google Trends with a new interface.

Google Trends does not provide absolute values for the number of search queries, but instead shows relative search volumes (RSV). The relative search volumes are normalised to the highest value, which is set to 100. Seeing absolute search volumes requires a separate browser extension that overlays absolute numbers onto Google Trends' y-axis. The popularity of up to 5 search terms or search topics can be compared directly. Additional comparisons require a comparison term or topic. In contrast to search terms, search topics are "a group of terms that have the same concept in any language".

In 2009, Yossi Matias et al. published research on the predictability of search trends.

In a series of articles in The New York Times, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz used Google Trends to measure a variety of behaviors. For example, in June 2012, he argued that search volume for the word "nigger(s)" could be used to measure racism in different parts of the United States. Correlating this measure with Obama's vote share, he calculated that Obama lost about 4 percentage points due to racial animus in the 2008 presidential election. He also used Google data, along with other sources, to estimate the size of the gay population. This article noted that the most popular search beginning "is my husband" is "is my husband gay?" In addition, he found that American parents were more likely to search "is my son gifted?" than "is my daughter gifted?" But they were more likely to search "is my daughter overweight?" than "is my son overweight?" He also examined cultural differences in attitudes around pregnancy.

Google Trends has also been used to forecast economic indicators, and financial markets, and analysis of Google Trends data has detected regional flu outbreaks before conventional monitoring systems. Google Trends is increasingly used in ecological and conservation studies, with the number of research articles growing over 50% per year. Google Trends data has been used to examine trends in public interest and awareness on biodiversity and conservation issues, species bias in conservation project, and identify cultural aspects of environmental issues. The data obtained from Google Trends has also been used to track changes in the timing biological processes as well as the geographic patterns of biological invasion.