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As I have said plenty of times before, I do not like Google for a very large number of reasons and the longer I deal with Google the less I like it. However it's the only game in town when it comes to search engines so I suck it down and get on with business. And to be fair there are a few aspects of Google that I really do like.

One of the things I like about Google ... and something that I'm sure is under-utilized by many Webmasters ... is Google Trends. You can find it at google.com/trends and it really is a very interesting and useful tool for Webmasters. Not only can it help you attract current traffic but it can help you plan for the future.

If you're after current traffic then the front page of Google Trends lists the search topics that are hot today. You'll see the top 10 hot search terms on the front page and if you follow the 'more hot trends' link you'll find the next 90 hot trends for the day.

Pick any of those terms, write about them in your blog, and you stand a reasonable chance of tapping into the traffic that's looking for information on those terms. Of course that's probably not going to work for you if your blog is only new but there's a good chance it will work if your blog has been around for a while.

But to tell you the truth those hot trends don't really interest me all that much. Instead it's the other part of Google Trends that I find very useful and that's the part that you access via the search box.

You can type in a single search term or phrase or several if you like and when you hit the button you will find a goldmine of information is displayed. If you're searching for the trends regarding a single word or phrase you will be able to see how the number of searches have risen and fallen right back to the beginning of 2004 and if you have a product to sell that information is invaluable.

If you're selling something that you haven't sold before then it can be very helpful to see what times of the year most people search for that product and Google Trends will show you that. It will also show you the countries and cities where that search term is most popular and even the languages of the people who are searching for that term.

For example if you go to Google Trends and type in the word 'dating' without the inverted comma you'll find a graph that clearly shows that around this time of year people are searching for information about dating. Look at the end of 2004 and there's a slight upward ripple; look at the end of 2005 and you will see quite a peak in the number of people who were searching for dating information. There's another slight peak at the end of 2006 too.

Below the graph you'll another graph that shows the regions where the most searches for 'dating' comes from.

Now compare that graph with the one that's displayed if you add 'online dating' into the search box. The graph for that term is certainly a different shape but there are still interesting peaks showing around this time of year.

So what can you learn from those two graphs ... well sadly there's something shown in both those graphs that I haven't yet mentioned. That something is a rather steep decline in the number of people who are searching for either term, and that appears to have started about half way through this year. So if you're pushing a lot of traffic to dating sponsors then perhaps it's time to think about finding somewhere else to send that traffic.

But there are still those interesting peaks in the graph around Christmas each year so in the lead up to Christmas there's more interest in dating and that's something that we can take advantage of. Start adding advertising for dating sites to your marketing push around early December and keep it up right through to the beginning of the new year and you should be able to score some nice sales from lonely people.

You see, we think of this time of year as being the time for giving presents and having fun with our families but it's also the time of year when people get very lonely. They can't connect with people through their normal social channels so they turn to the Web and go searching for dating sites.

Remember that each year and this may not be the quiet time for you that it is for so many other affiliate marketers.

And before I go, just search Google Trends for porn and free porn ... that's a very interesting graph that you'll see there with a trend that is definitely worth watching.