Google adds images to trending searches

Google has refreshed its Hot Searches feature, adding visuals and grouping related rising search terms together to make it easier to discover what people are searching for right now.

Google has refreshed its Hot Searches feature, adding visuals and grouping related rising search terms together to make it easier to discover what people are searching for right now.

Google's Hot Searches help people uncover the latest trending topics or breaking news stories, in the same way that Twitter's trending topics show what people are talking about on the microblog now.

"With rich images and links to related news articles, you can glance at the list and instantly get an idea of why these topics are particularly hot at the moment and click to find out more about them," explains Nimrod Tamir, Google Trends Team. "Unlike the previous version of Hot Searches, which always provided 20 daily results, the new page introduces a filtering system that helps us make sure that the list includes only the truly hottest news stories of the day."

Hot Searches are now updated on an hourly basis and provide an indication of how many searches people have conducted on a particular trending topic over a 24-hour period.

Google uses an algorithm that analyzes millions of searches in the US to determine the hottest rising searches of the moment.