Google Labs provides popularity of keywords,...

If you’ve ever wondered what the popularity of a keyword or phrase is, Google’s got a tool that can help you. Google Trends, one of numerous experiments inhabiting the Google Labs site, provides the curious with search trends over time for a single or multiple term.

In addition to showing relative search volume trends, the site also maps news results onto the provided timeline. The graph Google Trends returned below is for the query “social networking” and “social media” (Social Networking is shown in blue, Social Media in red):

Below the graphed information Google also provides relative search volume by regions, cities and languages.

A recent addition is the ability to pull up the traffic on web sites. Google Trends allows entering multiple sites, just as it does for keywords. Regional information is also provided, as well as “also visited” sites and “also search for” keywords. Here’s MySpace.com in comparison to Facebook.com (MySpace.com is shown in blue, Facebook.com in red):

Just another tool you may want to employ when researching keywords or web sites. Don’t miss Google’s disclaimer at the bottom of the screen:

“Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns. Please keep in mind that several approximations are used when computing these results. All traffic statistics are estimates.”