Google Trends is a very handy tool which lets you tap into Google's database of searches and allows you to chart what has been popular over a period of time. The tool allows you to search for a search term and see how it has performed over a period of time. Anything from the last 30 days back to when records began, which for Google it seems was 2004.
This tool is best used for multiple search terms so you can see how for example the number of searches for Barack Obama compared to the number of searches for Hilary Clinton over the last few years. It even offers links to news items when there is a spike in the results. Pretty cool.
What Google Zeitgeist does (zeitgeist meaning: the cultural, moral climate of the time,) is chart the global search trends for the last few years. The 'year-end zeitgeist' section offers the following as the top gaining searched terms for these years.
2001 - 1.Nostradamus 2.CNN 3.World Trade Centre
2002 - 1.Spiderman 2.Shakira 3.Winter Olympics
2003 - 1.Britney Spears 2.Harry Potter 3.Matrix
2004 - 1.Britney Spears 2.Paris Hilton 3.Christina Aguilera
2005 - 1.MySpace 2.Ares 3.Baidu
2006 - 1.Bebo 2.MySpace 3.World Cup
2007 - 1.iPhone 2.Badoo 3.Facebook
2008 - 1.Sarah Palin 2.Beijing 2008 3.Facebook login
2009 - 1.Michael Jackson 2.Facebook 3.Tuenti
So what do these results tell us about the 'climate of our times'? Well unsurprisingly the focus of 2001 was about 911 and our collective fate as humanity, such a huge global event had everyone searching. 2002-2004 appears to have seen the world collapse into celebrity and consumer entertainment troughs with pop females being a feature.
Social networking began in 2005 and has featured every year since and has shown the Facebook revolution take hold. For some it may be surprising to see Tuenti and Badoo up there. Aside from social networking taking root, the Olympics and the World Cup get in there, as well as the iPhone and two well known celebrities who both died in different ways. Trending information that runs deeper than this can be extremely useful for SEO tips and can often be frequented by budget website owners looking to provide popular content for their sites.
This along with Google Trends is a fun and informative resource for us to check out what topics are in the global mind's eye. You can also see what terms have diminished in search popularity and search by region too if you want so you can see how many people search for Barack Obama compared to those that searched for Michael Jackson in Australia in 2009.
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http://EzineArticles.com/?What-Do-Google-Zeitgeist-Results-Tell-Us?&id=4702153] What Do Google Zeitgeist Results Tell Us?