Our Methodology

1. Where our data comes from

The radar is built on public, openly available trend feeds — primarily Google Trends RSS for the United States and Vietnam, alongside other public trending sources for music, community discussion and technology. We pull only information that is already published for the public, and every trend retains a link back to the original news article that triggered it. We do not track individual users, build behavioral profiles, or use private data to generate the rankings.

2. How often it refreshes

An automated job re-fetches the source feeds on a recurring schedule — roughly once an hour — and the site performs lighter background syncs while a tab stays open. Because we rank by live momentum, the board is intentionally fluid: a topic that leads in the morning may fall several places by the afternoon as public attention moves on. Each view is a snapshot in time rather than a fixed list.

3. How we measure heat

Every trend carries an approximate search-volume figure from its source. We translate that raw number into a simple five-tier scale so it is easy to read at a glance:

• Emerging — an early signal, under ~10K searches.
• Rising — gaining speed, roughly 10K–50K.
• Hot — tens of thousands, roughly 50K–200K.
• Viral — hundreds of thousands, 200K–1M.
• Explosive — roughly a million searches or more.

These bands are deliberately broad. Source volumes are approximate by nature, so the tiers are meant to separate a minor blip from a genuinely major story — not to imply false precision.

4. How we categorize topics

Each trend is tagged automatically — Sports, Entertainment, Tech, Politics or general Trending — by matching keywords in the topic and its associated headline against a curated set of signals. Automated categorization is fast and consistent, but not perfect; an occasional topic may land in a broad bucket. We favor transparency over the illusion of flawlessness.

5. The context and analysis we add

On top of the raw feed, our digest and per-trend pages generate original context: what a topic is, how large the spike is, which category it falls into, and the most likely reason it broke through. This commentary is meant to save you time and help you decide what is worth your attention. It is not a substitute for original journalism, which is why every trend links out to the source so you can read the full reporting and form your own view.

6. Our editorial principles

• Attribution first. Original publishers own their headlines, snippets and images; we always link back.
• No manufactured outrage. We describe why a topic is trending without sensationalizing it.
• Correct quickly. Because data is live, errors get superseded fast; we surface multiple sources rather than a single take.
• Respect your time. The entire point is to help you catch up in minutes, then get on with your day.