Exploding Topics finds trends 12+ months before they go mainstream: machine learning scans search, social and commerce signals to surface rising topics early, then human analysts vet them so you act on real demand, not noise.
Trend discovery runs in three layers. First, comprehensive collection: signals flow in from social media platforms, search engines, forums and communities, news, e-commerce sites and podcasts. Second, proprietary machine learning models analyze historical data to spot growth patterns, predict trajectories and catch sudden spikes at the absolute earliest sign. Third — the step most trend tools skip — human experts review the top-scoring trends, validate authenticity and filter out fads like celebrity gossip, so what lands in your feed is a durable shift, not a meme.
The database now holds 1.1M+ trends with 1.1 million users exploring them. Each trend card shows live search volume and growth — Padel Racket up from 122k to 301k monthly searches, Loop Earplugs from 370k to 673k — with a plain-English explainer of what the thing is and who it serves. For content and SEO teams it doubles as a keyword engine: free tools check real search demand for any topic, plus keyword research, difficulty, rank checking, backlink checking, SEO audits and competitor analysis, so an emerging topic can go straight from discovery to a content plan.
A limited free plan covers basic trend browsing, keyword checks and the newsletter. Exploding Topics Pro comes in three tiers — Entrepreneur $39/month (100 tracked trends), Investor $99/month (500 tracked trends, startup database, forecasting and CSV export) and Business $249/month (2,000 tracked trends, trend reports and API access) — with a 7-day free trial on paid plans. Exploding Topics is owned by Semrush; Pro is sold separately from Semrush subscriptions.
Marketers, content strategists, founders and investors who win by arriving early — picking niches, products and topics before the crowd. If your SEO is purely defensive maintenance of existing rankings, the trend feed is a nice-to-have rather than a necessity.