Google Trends: useful tool for analysing Web topic trends

Google Trends is a rather useful tool that you may not be aware of. It lets you analyse trends in Web topics according to their search frequency and News coverage. Up to five topics can be compared with results listed by country and region. Major news topics are listed and tagged on the trend lines.

For example, this image shows trends in the use of the terms 'Peak Oil' and 'Climate Change' over the last 4 years (see live trends here). It shows how the UN Climate Change Report caused a major peak on Feb 2, 2007, but interest in Peak Oil appears to have tailored off. There seems to be far more interest in both topics from Australia and New Zealand that the US.

Selecting a particular country shows the corresponding search activity, but unfortunately not the News items (the product is under development).

For more info see About Google Trends