Google Zeitgeist

More Data

We hope you've enjoyed our look back at the happenings of 2009. But the story doesn't have to end there—if you're interested in further exploring search trends around the world, there are a variety of ways to do so.

How many ways can you say "Zeitgeist?"

You can use a wide range of Google Translate tools to translate any of our international year-end Zeitgeist pages into up to 51 languages. If, for example, you speak Spanish but want to read what was top-of-mind in Japan this year, just enter the text or the webpage URL of the Japan Zeitgeist page into Google Translate and read it in your own language. Or you can use Google Toolbar on Internet Explorer or Firefox—our newest version with advanced translation will translate the page for you automatically.

Digging deeper

Our Year-End Zeitgeist is just a small sampling of the queries and search trends that we found interesting this year. If you want to go beyond what we've shared here, try using these tools to discover more about global and regional search terms over time (in some cases, as far back as 2004).

  • Google Trends - For a broad look at search query data, enter up to five search terms to see relative popularity over time. You can use Trends to compare terms in any language from any country—the interface is currently available in U.S. English, Japanese, and Chinese.
  • Trends for Websites (U.S. only) - Google Trends for website traffic data. Type in a website address to see visitors by region and related sites visited.
  • Insights for Search - A closer look at search query data for power users. Create your own lists of "most popular" and "fastest rising" queries for different geographic regions over time and by topic. Insights for Search is available in 39 languages.
  • Hot Trends (U.S., India, Singapore, and Japan only) - The top 40 fastest-rising search queries right now, updated continuously throughout the day.

Personalize it

Perhaps you just want to take a closer look at your own web behavior over the past year. While the data we used for our Zeitgeist is anonymous and in aggregate, there are a few places you can look to examine your own "personal zeitgeist" if you have a Google account.

  • Web History - If you've chosen to enable Web History in your Google Account, you can get an interesting glimpse at your own web activity, such as top queries and peak activity over time. To try it out, log into Web History with your Google Account and click on the "Trends" tab. This might not account for all of your web activity, but it can be a fun look back at your query and browsing history over time.
  • Google Reader - If you use Google Reader to read blogs and other RSS feeds, you can view your reading trends by going to the "Trends" tab under "Your stuff" in the lefthand menu.