Google has recently announced some additions to their Google Trends tool which includes the option to now download the stats into a spreadsheet. Google Trends can be a useful tool to look at how different search terms or phrases may have been used over time, as well as by geographic area or language.

You need to have a Google Account to get access to the full data from this tool, but once in you can view trends by individual terms or you can compare two terms together. Data is scaled to fit the comparative charts, but it helps to provide seasonal usage of terms, or the market responses to particular news stories or other events that may drive search activity. With the new option to download the data into a spreadsheet format it provide new ways to analyse the data for your particular business needs.

The Google Webmaster blog has also just announced the addition of an extra layer to the Google Trends data which is still in development phase but enables users to view the activity on popular websites based on the way that the number of unique visitors has changed over the last 12 months, the countries where the site/s are most popular, the top related sites and search terms used. For example, a search for Amazon shows the different visitor trends between countries and the high traffic spikes each year prior to Christmas where the site has a particularly strong presence, such as the US and UK.