As someone deeply involved in SEO and content marketing, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can help me discover trending topics before they become saturated. Recently, I came across a fresh and exciting platform called ExplodingTopics, co-founded by Brian Dean of Backlinko, which has quickly caught my attention. This tool has been making waves as a potential competitor to Google Trends, offering a unique approach to uncovering emerging trends across various online communities and search data.
In this article, I’ll share my detailed review of ExplodingTopics, explore how it compares with Google Trends, and explain why I believe it’s a valuable addition to any content creator’s toolkit. Whether you’re a YouTuber, blogger, or digital marketer, understanding how to leverage these insights can give you a significant edge in creating timely and engaging content.
A Brief Overview of Both Tools
ExplodingTopics is a trend discovery platform that identifies topics gaining popularity before they become mainstream. Unlike Google Trends, which primarily focuses on search data, ExplodingTopics aggregates signals from a wider range of sources, including online forums, shopping trends, and social media chatter. This multi-dimensional approach aims to provide a more comprehensive view of what’s truly “exploding” in popularity.
Main Features Comparison
Google Trends
- Real-time data: Access to hourly, daily, and historical trend data
- Geographic filtering: Country, region, and city-level data
- Category filtering: Filter trends by industry categories
- Related queries: See what else users search for
- Trend comparison: Compare up to five search terms simultaneously
- News headlines overlay: See how news events affect search interest
- YouTube search analysis: Track trends specific to YouTube searches
Exploding Topics
- Trend prediction: Identifies rising trends before they peak
- Database access: Large repository of previously identified trends
- Meta trends: Categorization of broader trend movements
- Weekly reports: Regular updates on newly detected trends
- Trend tracking: Monitor specific trends over time
- Industry filtering: Filter trends by business sector
- API access: Integration options for enterprise users
- Backtracking: Historical data on when trends first emerged
Data Comparison
Data Source
Google Trends draws exclusively from Google’s search engine data, representing billions of searches performed daily. This provides a direct view of what users are actively seeking information about.
Exploding Topics casts a wider net, analyzing data from multiple sources, including:
- Search engines
- Social media platforms
- News websites
- Forums and community discussions
- E-commerce sites
- App stores
This multi-source approach allows Exploding Topics to detect emerging interests before they manifest as significant search volume.
Data Accuracy
Google Trends offers exceptional accuracy for search volume patterns, but comes with limitations:
- Data is presented as relative search volume rather than absolute numbers
- Data is normalized and scaled from 0-100
- Provides reliable historical records back to 2004
- Updates in near real-time for trending topics
Exploding Topics prioritizes trend detection over absolute accuracy:
- Combines algorithmic detection with human verification
- May identify meaningful trends that don’t yet have massive search volume
- Historical data is limited to when the platform began tracking
- Updates weekly rather than in real-time
Extra Features
Google Trends
- Trending Searches: Daily and real-time trending search terms
- Year in Search: Annual roundup of top trending searches
- Google Trends Explore: Advanced visualization and filtering options
- Exportable data: Download trend data as CSV files
- Embeddable visualizations: Share interactive trend graphs
Exploding Topics
- Trend prediction score: Numerical rating of growth potential
- Growth metrics: Percentage growth over multiple time periods
- Market size estimates: Potential market value for trending niches
- Competitor identification: Companies capitalizing on trends
- Meta trends analysis: Broader pattern identification
- Portfolio feature: Save and organize trends of interest
- Weekly email digest: Curated trend updates delivered to your inbox
Pricing Comparison
Google Trends
- Free tier: All features are available at no cost
- No premium options: Democratized access regardless of user
- API access: Limited availability through public datasets
Exploding Topics
- Free tier: Limited access to the trend database and basic features
- Entrepreneur plan: $39/month (annual billing)
- Investor plan: $99/month
- Business plan: $249/month
Strengths and Weaknesses Comparison
Google Trends Strengths
- Completely free access
- Massive historical data repository
- Direct insight into Google search behavior
- Real-time updates for breaking trends
- Geographic and categorical filtering precision
- Simplicity and ease of use
Google Trends Weaknesses
- Limited to search volume data only
- Shows relative rather than absolute numbers
- Requires a minimum search volume to display data
- Limited predictive capabilities
- No dedicated trend discovery features
- Basic interface with limited customization
Exploding Topics Strengths
- Early trend identification before mainstream adoption
- Multi-source data analysis beyond just search
- Trend prediction and growth forecasting
- Curated approach with human verification
- Organized database of pre-identified trends
- Industry-specific insights for business applications
Exploding Topics Weaknesses
- Significant cost for premium features
- Limited historical data compared to Google Trends
- Less granular geographic filtering
- Weekly rather than real-time updates
- Smaller data sample size than Google’s search index
- A greater learning curve for effective utilization
Exploding Topics vs Google Trends: Which is Better?
The ideal choice between these platforms depends entirely on your specific needs and use case:
Choose Google Trends if:
- You need free access to trend data
- You want to track established search terms
- Real-time monitoring is essential
- Historical trend analysis is your priority
- Geographic specificity matters to your research
- You need a simple, user-friendly interface
Choose Exploding Topics if:
- Discovering trends before competitors is crucial
- You need insights from multiple data sources
- You’re willing to invest in premium trend intelligence
- Your focus is on finding business opportunities
- You value human-verified trend curation
- You need industry-specific trend intelligence
Many professionals find the most powerful approach is using both tools complementarily—Exploding Topics to identify emerging opportunities and Google Trends to validate and track their growth trajectory over time.
Conclusion
Both Exploding Topics and Google Trends offer valuable but distinctly different approaches to trend research. Google Trends provides unmatched historical search data completely free, making it an essential resource for understanding established patterns. Meanwhile, Exploding Topics excels at early identification of rising trends across multiple platforms, offering a potential competitive edge for those willing to invest in its premium features.
Rabin is an SEO Specialist and a content creator who is also a BCA graduate. He shares easy-to-follow hacks and tips to help you make smart choices for SEO tools and strategies through his blog. Passionate about learning and sharing, Rabin’s goal is to help you navigate your SEO and blogging journey with confidence.