Google Trends Results Drops from 100 to 40

If you have been using Google Trends lately, you might have noticed that there are fewer results. On September 28, Google Trends trimmed their results down from 100 trends to 40 trends.

As explained on the official Google blog, Google dropped 60 results, and integrated Google Trends into their search results. If you go to the Google main search page and search a keyword that is in the Top 40, you can scroll down to the bottom the search results page and find a graph denoting the keyword's hotness. This feature, seemingly in beta mode, is only available in the United States and Japan.

As a result, the Google Trends Top 40 features more "quality" trends instead of spammy keyword manipulation and drive-by search results such as Final Jeopardy! questions and torrent site results. Additionally, hackers were exploiting the keyword popularity in order to have curious users click through to dangerous malware. Now, the Google Trends Top 40 results exhibit a real sense of what the web is searching for, at least for a few hours.

Google has not officially stated why they pared results down from 100 to 40, and one shouldn't expect them to give away their secret reasons anytime soon, especially since spammers and hackers are exploiting Google to their advantage. Earlier this week, Google had announced a beta version of Google Wave, and already users have been subjected to phishy invites, as reported by The Register.

Another possible reason for the Google Trends shake-up may be Google's tradition of being the trend-setter rather than the lead-follower. Popular Google Trends equivalents on the internet are Bing's xRank, Yahoo's Buzz, and Twitter's Trending Topics. Whenever Google changes the way its search results are displayed, it also changes the way its ad sales are generated.

The drop of 60 trends hurts the small-time blogger sites, as the top 40 results favors established e-magazines and newspapers. An article written on a popular site like Yahoo! will have a better chance of breaking into the Google Top 40 than a marginal blog post breaking into the top 100 and moving upward from there via user curiosity.

For people who use google trends simply as a method of generating new content based on what is popular at the time, topic saturation hurts their amount of views. With only the top 40 trends at any given moment, Google Trends offers a more spontaneous view of popular web trends. A topic on Google Trends when it had 100 trend results would often linger in the top 100 for at least 12 hours, long after the topic had whiskers. Now, Google Trends feels more fluid.

Google, "Google Trends"
Official Google Blog: "Keep up with the latest trends using Google Search"
The Register, "Google Wave search poisoned by scareware scammers"