Google adds Hot Trends to search results

Think you're the only one searching for 'bacon of the month club'? Think again
by Sharon Gaudin

Not wanting to be left behind in the race toward better real-time search, Google Inc. is bringing Hot Trends to its search results.

On Monday evening, Google announced that it's expanding Hot Trends , a feature which introduced about two and a half years ago that lists the 100 most popular Google search queries from the past hour.

Late Monday, for instance, some of Google's Hot Trends included the bacon of the month club, the new TV show Trauma , and Halloween costume ideas.

Now, Google is putting that information where more people will see it - with actual search queries. If a user searches for one of the top 100 hottest queries, information, such as how popular the query is and how fast it's rising over time, will come up beneath the results list.

"To coincide with this change, we've also reduced the number of trends listed on the Google Hot Trends homepage to 40 from 100," wrote Google spokesmen in a blog post . "This feature, however, will show up for any query that matches the top 100. We hope this change will make for a simpler user experience, and help you focus better on the top, most interesting content."

Last month, Facebook Inc. added real-time search capabilities to its social network, a move aimed at solidifying its lead over social networking rivals like MySpace Inc. and Twitter Inc. Facebook's real-time search news came on the heels of the company's purchase of real-time feed aggregator FriendFeed Inc.

With Facebook users able to search the last 30 days of their News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes, the company is positioning itself to act as a hub for its users.