Google Trends, which shows you the hot search queries on Google at any given time, is more than two years old now (this year they added website/domain tracking as well). PR professionals and brand managers use it regularly to track how hot their assets are, and there are countless other uses for the service.
One use though, which is becoming increasingly popular we hear, is for blogs, mainstream media sites and others to monitor Google Trends regularly and write stories based on hot terms. Google displays a daily summary for easier data gathering.
The goal isn’t to tap into what Internet users think is interesting and write about that. Instead, it’s all about getting more hits from Google.
Here’s how it works:
Blogs and mainstream media sites are indexed by Google very frequently. Many times per day, in fact. And those sites often have great Page Rank already. Combine that regular indexing and Page Rank with Google’s recent policy of ranking news type results higher than older, evergreen stuff, and you have a system ripe for abuse.
Let’s say I run a popular political or celebrity gossip site (two topics that pop up a lot on Google Trends). I look for hot queries that people are typing in right now, for whatever reason. Then I write a blog post, making sure to use the query term in the title of the post (which weights heavier for matching content to specific queries). The content of the article itself is mostly irrelevant, as long as your normal readers don’t gag on it.
Within a few minutes that content is indexed by Google, and the high Page Rank of the site along with the newness of the content pushes it up towards to top of the first page of results. Possibly all the way to the top.
We’re not talking about a trivial amount of traffic, either. One person I spoke with about this yesterday said he can get up to 30,000 extra unique visitors per day just by focusing content on top queries, which is more than enough to dedicate a couple of full time people to the effort.
I’ve debated (with myself) on how “bad” this kind of behavior really is. Sites that do this are clearly exploiting a weakness in Google’s search methodology, but it’s not like they’re engaging in black hat SEO tactics to trick Google into thinking their content is more relevant than it is. Rather, they’re just using their Page Rank heft and cheating a little on the edges.
I’m not going to say which sites I’m hearing are doing this, but you can check for yourself. If you see a headline that seems a little off topic or weird, followed by some very hastily written content, have a quick look at Google Trends and see if the exact query is in the title of the post or article. You may be surprised at who’s taking advantage of this.
Interesting but then again what Google can do? More algorithms and analysis between the header and the content or what?
Google Trends – huge sites.
Google Sitemap – small sites.
Several blogs use this technique for serving the hot content of the moment. If applied in correct way, it does give tons of traffic.
Trends also show the hotness meter with every trend and its traffic growth graph. I think if the trend is ‘Mild’ on hotness meter, there is no use of creating any content for that story. I prefer those ones, that have at least ‘Spicy’ on hotness meter of Google Trends.
Trends is mainly US based so non-US blogs can’t take advantage of it too much unless people are searching in their area too.
As long as the bloggers are actually writing decent content then there isn’t an issue – it’s just the same as writing about any other breaking news story.
The trick is to learn how to predict the hot trends before they go hot – that way you can get in there first.
Google actually likes bloggers doing this because otherwise the search results for some of the hot queries would be totally irrelevant. They even created an algorithm called “query deserves freshness” to make sure brand new blog posts ranked highly for these hot terms.
http://www.blog...reshness-model/
“Google actually likes bloggers doing this because otherwise the search results for some of the hot queries would be totally irrelevant ” , so does this help serve relevent content really ??? , this google trends has led to lots of spamindexing , just go around n check out… , only 10 % of the contents are relevent and original rest all are crap. any to dic and harry out there can exploit this….,
heres what a spamer does
1. get the hottest query from google trends
2.make a blog post titled with the queary, putt all the key words related to queary into the post
3.just put a link to original content(or some times just link to another spam site)
4.bookmark the blog post in as many as possible
thats it now you could find these spamblogs or their book marks make it to top 20 results…
here are example of site mainted exclusively spamming google hot trends
http://ratevin....19_archive.html
I’ve got to be honest in that I don’t see a problem with this method.
People are searching for a hot term, and traditional media/bloggers respond by providing the information to them. Classic supply and demand.
As you said, it’s not black hat; and I personally do not consider it an exploit. It’s just SEO with instantaneous results!
Me too. I use it regularly and see it as a nice tool. If you’re retarded and think hours about the next hot topic instead of using g-trends, well, you’re retard
Google Search Insight service could also be used for similar goal. People will filter the good post contents from crab
I don’t think there’s any issue in doing this. You’re simply giving people what they want to see, based on their recent search activity. And you’d be pretty dumb not to use these tools, as a publisher, all things considered.
In any case, it beats guessing what people want.
To add to this you could create content based on what is trending atm on twitter, facebook, etc….
Wont give you Google traffic, but should add to it
This is really a tough call, I prefer to stay on the safe side and not partake in these gray activities because the cost (banned by Google) is just too difficult to overcome for any site out there. Keep the ship moving slow and steady and online success will come, try to game an algorithm and you will get caught eventually.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
People who manipulate pagerank and do stuff like that with poorly written content is looked at as kinda thirsty…lol
Mike,
Forget trends – use insights instead. Its so much better than trends
http://www.goog...nsights/search/
http://www.goog...ends/about.html
“You can see a list of today’s top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S.”
I can’t find how non-use blogs can actually exploit this as the hot trends are mapped from U.S searches. Oh.. for a sec I thought I was reading a SEO Blog..
The discussion happening here is pretty old.. unless you guys subscribe to few seo blogs which have been talking about this so many times!
Oh yes.. you could have linked this http://www.tech...r-trends-twist/ to the current post.
Interesting. I’m a blogger, and I’ve used Google Trends a couple times when I was stumped for a topic–but I didn’t do the headline thing, and it didn’t really increase my traffic. But that wasn’t my goal–I have a nice strong readership and a commitment to write five days a week, and once in a while I just need topic help.
Off to look at Google Insight…
Some very well known websites use twitscoop to do exactely the same based off twitter trends…
Hmmm… I agree that if the blogger is actually contributing to the topic rather than solely leeching then there’s no harm done, right?
Let’s see if it works though
“You may be surprised at who’s taking advantage of this.”
Come on, either you inform us, or you don’t. Saying: “I know something you don’t” is a bit mean.
Agree with AK!! Thats so mean !
The Daily Telegraph, one of the leading broadsheets in the UK, definitely does this. It was covered in Private Eye a few weeks ago.
Commenters may not see a problem in this as a rule, but it’s definitely a problem for the Telegraph. Its reputation as a serious, upmarket newspaper has been compromised by increasing amounts of stories about Britney Spears. Trouble is, all they do is drive away their traditional audience, while the people they’re trying to attract carry on reading Heat.
If The Telegraph wants to feed readers stories about Britney then that’s a decision that might alienate its core readership, but there’s some kind of trade off to be had. The Daily Mail has boosted its page impressions hugely by focusing on celebs… they’re all at it. They presumably don’t care too much about their brand values, so maybe the rewards are worth the risk?
That is a technique a lot of writers use as well they should. Do the initial research to know what is popular and what is being searched. It will help them get noticed. I bet companies will begin using this technique as well with terms that may be relevant to their business.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
Edopter has also turned into a great resource for trend research as we’re tracking the demographics behind these trends and their movements across the world. You’re able to go beyond keyword searches and see why people are into certain trends, where its getting big, etc.
http://www.edopter.com
Clearly you are talking about Mahalo and Jason Calacanis.
I think this is what was happening with the term “creepy gay kid happy birthday”.
Which negates the trend results and the tool. It’s a classic – chicken or the egg scenario. Is it an organically popular term, or pushed to the top.
Maybe it doesn’t matter – traffic is traffic.
it’s a good source for SEO…
or it’s a bad one?
Typical marketers. More concerned with their uniques than their content (since that’s what drives the money train). Even Emperor Steve wouldn’t approve.
This is straight-up, without-a-doubt happening in the blog space right now. One day, a particular term came up in trends due to a national mention of it. I had one of the only articles written on the subject (which I wrote about a year previously). The term hit top 10 google trends and all the sudden, I was getting digg-like, stumbleupon-like traffic. Then I noticed a ton of outlets publishing stories with the term. I guess this is standard mo for some websites, especially if you’re just after views and not really trying to keep consistent content.
Its not just bloggers out there. There are several sites out there that follow this practice. Like Cough – Mahalo -cough cough – They’ve done this for the past couple of years. Create short stubs with nothing but links to the top stories, and a little content just to drive traffic in. If they don’t have a page dedicated to the people in question they’ll rush one out, link them all up and create a little web of traffic.
Chasing Google trends is nothing new, Sploggers have done this crap for years. See a hot story, grab a few links that are hot, steal a paragraph or two, add in some ads and load the page with even more keywords. You drive in tons of traffic with a little amount of effort.
I think this is just the nature of the world we live in. Whatever is the current “trend” publishers are going to direct the conversation in that direction the help push readership and ad revenue. Yes, if you were a honest blog not concerned about making money you will talk about whatever you want. But for most of us its about getting paid and sharing an opinion, and if the public demands more coverage on a specific area, hey give it to them.
Anyone know any tools that work well for international i.e. non english-language terms?
To a certain extend I agree with you. However, how is this any different from any other media outlet today? They will pick out what is the most popular (i.e. What will attract the most ‘eyes’) and then broadcast it (using their reach to get the story out).
This isn’t anything new, it is only that technology is making it easier. All the more reason to develop real insights, as opposed to being the first one to break a story.
J @ http://www.sumolabs.com
I’m not allowed to talk about such things.
Hey Sean life still treating you well?
No complaints old buddy!
i cant blame them. i actually think anyone not doing it to some degree is an idiot.
I would copy google too..
http://gatesand...s.blogspot.com/
Great post. What else could explain how the “Bobby Bones Show” (which features the” Intern with Piercings” as its latest episode) the most “hot” Google trend today.
As a PR guy, I will manipulate this as much as possible. Thx.
I noticed radar has a post on “Thoughts on the Financial Crisis”. It’s not total irrelevant, but it does look weird to me that as a tech blog, it ranks in the first in blog section of google when searching “Financial Crisis”.
Mike, The little prince has been doing this with Mahalo since it was possible to trend-stuff GOOG SERPs. Combine that with do-follow link-farms-in-a-post ( http://calacani...gravy-graphics/ ) from calacanis.com and you have the Mahalo playbook for Crossing the Chasm via SEO.
I honestly think this is a much better way of acquiring search traffic.
Ranking for topics that people think are hot and letting your reader base learn about this topic first hand from you is a really good use of search traffic. FAR FAR better than putting up a page like this:
http://www.goog...amp;btnG=Search
If sometimes thought about doing a zeitgeist blog on exactly this; not to attract advertising/traffic, but as a consequence of my own looking at some of the search terms and wondering who/what/why. Particularly since Google hottrends is US-specific I often find myself wondering (for example) “what’s a danity kane, and why should I care if it’s broken up?”.
Perfect example
http://www.maha...esel_jeans_sale
Totally pointless page, created today, no real content but ranks high in Google
“Check back for updates” – WooHoo !! – I can’t wait…
I am a publisher at Bites magazine in Brazil and i believe in this format. Indexation of the content is the new tool for journalism. Google change the concept the relevancy and quality of the news. I believe in the new form the make news: journalism of indexation.
Imagine that, content producers tailoring their work to match current trends. Why that almost sounds like a… news site.
Regardless, Google Trends is a stupid way to predict trends. By the time the data is available you’re already late to the party. If you’re creative, you can get on board at a much earlier stage.
it’s a source for SEO. A lot of websites are using this method. I think that is a good method…why not?
Over the past ten days or so I’ve been playing with Hot Trends. I’ve posted three, sometimes four times a day, but to be honest I have not seen any increase in traffic. As a matter of fact, at the time of writing, I’ve made the grand total of six cents for my efforts
My articles might not be prize literature but they some thought and research goes into them.
Upfront I want to do three things from blogging hot trends:
make some adsense revenue
use it to point to other sites I host
promote affiliate products
If Google does not regard it as Black Hat and I can make some money from it then I’ll stick with it.
Kevin
I do not see anything bad in leveraging the google trends to get traffic to a website. it is all about being smart
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Thank.
Great post. What else could explain how the “Bobby Bones Show” (which features the” Intern with Piercings” as its latest episode) the most “hot” Google trend today.