A surprisingly little known, yet powerful tool that Google offers is the ability to “data mine” (sort of) keywords run against their search engine via Google Trends. Simply type in a search phrase like you would normally and you will be presented with all sorts of statistical data on the popularity of the search. It’s actually more intuitive to use than it is to try to explain (Google does a good job of it though in their help).

Typically I visit page when I have a bit of time to kill (since Google removed their “last search” functions eons ago) and I want to see what the current “hot topic” is. This tool is more than a time killer though as you can do some great analysis on the popularity and origination of search terms.