This catches so many people out. The Google Hot Trends information that you see at www.google.com/trends is only based on US searches. Even Google with all their processing power can only show so much data in real time. So what do we do when we want this type of Google Trends information for a different country?
First of all Hot Trends (US) is based on today’s search information, in that way it’s not really picking out trends as much as impulses. Searches that come and go in a moment’s time, very few trends stick around for more than a few hours.. It should really be called Google Impulse. Google just don’t make this current information available for any other region, sorry about that. There are no hacks or secret URLs you can use to get that information. It’s just not available.
What is available though is true trending information for every country that Google supports. This is provided through another of their portals called Google Insights. The difference will be in how you use this information. For example with Google Trends you may pick a search out to write about. Your content will have to be very specific. With the information in Insights you’d be better of looking at the actual trend of related phrases and write 1 or 2 articles that include several variations on those phrases.
So say I was interested in what is popular in India right now these are the steps I’d follow:-
1. Go to http://www.google.com/insights/search/
2. From the radio buttons on the left I’d select Locations
3. From the Locations drop down I’d select India
4. From the filter I’d select Last 7 Days
5. I’d hit Search
It’s as easy as that. The difference between the information presented between this and Google Trends is that the insights information contains a lot of always popular phrases but on top of this provides me with a very solid 1-2 topics where as Trends tends to report a scatter gun of search phrases. Put it this way from what I’ve just seen anybody who can rank some content related to friendship day in India will be well on the way to some decent traffic.
The other thing to note about Google Insights is that they don’t include links to related web content in the results so if you want to drive traffic using this information it’s all about getting those natural search positions.
8 Responses to “Get Google Trends Info For Other Countries”
Stefan
August 7, 2009
I’ve never thought about the differences before. I’m always using Insights to see what’s “trendy”.
|.-= Stefan´s last blog ..How to Increase Your Number of Pageviews =-.
Charles
August 7, 2009
So far I am using more on Google Trends than Insights.
|R Kumar
August 8, 2009
I have always preferred Google Insights to Google trends. Combining Google Insights with a couple of other free tools available online can produce amazing results in Internet Marketing.
|BTW, I saw that you have changed your domain name and have now forwarded the older domain name to the new one. Any specific reason for the change, Paul?
.-= R Kumar´s last blog ..Instant paying affiliate programs – Quick Make Money Tips =-.
Jacques Snyman | Web Design
August 9, 2009
Thanks for that insight into the workings of Google. Operating in the South African marketplace this is of great interest to me, thanks for sharing.
|marcus
August 9, 2009
Great post. It seems to me that insights is far better tool for search engine marketing than trends.
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