Google has launched a new Trends tool called Top Charts. Top Charts shows the most popular searches in over 40 categories including actors, sports stars, animals, authors and cars. The data goes all the way back to 2004, showing you who was the most popular DJ or what the most searched for books were almost ten years ago. The information is currently limited to United States searches, i.e. those made using Google.com, with more countries set to be added soon.
Top Charts uses Google’s Knowledge Graph, which is becoming a prominent feature on search results pages as well as Trends. You can embed charts very easily, making it very shareable, social content. The embedded charts are interactive, displaying information about each entry and its movement in the chart.
Its yet another fantastic Trends tool. You can also visualise Hot Searches (queries that have a significant and sudden jump in traffic) but this is simply a makeover, not a new tool, but it still looks grat. The visualised data is described as showing the ‘latest hot searches’ but no definition of ‘latest’ is provided. Its certainly kept up to date, as indicated by the search terms.
Be sure to explore both updates to Trends. Top Charts is a very easy way of wasting a few minutes, especially with ten years of data to look into and compare.
