I ran 6 pet topics (dog food, cat toys, dog training, pet insurance, aquarium, dog bed) through Google Trends and Google Autocomplete for the US over 5 years. Here are a few things that stood out, and the trap hiding in one of the topics.
A few risers (US, data pulled 7 November 2026)
Year on year compares the latest 4 weeks with the same 4 weeks a year earlier.
| Search | Year on year | Peak month |
|---|---|---|
| pet insurance cost | +67% | September |
| dog bed for car | +118% | August |
| dog bed with cover | +125% | December |
| how old is my cat | +39% | August |
| dog food | -3% | July |
- People are pricing pet insurance, not just browsing it. "pet insurance cost" is up 67%, while plain "pet insurance" is flat (-2%). A rising "cost" search usually means people are close to deciding.
- Specific beats generic again. "dog bed with cover" (+125%) and "dog bed for car" (+118%) far outgrow "dog bed" (+17%).
- Seasonality matters for stock. Covered dog beds peak in December, so products and content need to be live by October.
The trap: "aquarium" is mostly not about fish
The biggest audience among the 6 topics was "aquarium". But when you expand it with Autocomplete and Trends' related searches, much of it is about public aquariums, not fish tanks:
- "monterey bay aquarium tickets", "boston aquarium tickets", "aquarium of the pacific"
- "columbus zoo and aquarium", "ripley's aquarium of myrtle beach"
- "aquarium restaurant nashville", "largest aquarium in the us"
None of these are pet-product niches. The rising searches also picked up the usual junk: homework-style questions such as "what factors impact the cost of your life insurance premium?" and "why might it be beneficial for governments to restrict the types of plants and animals that individuals can keep as pets…".
We removed 12 venue searches and 54 junk rising-search rows before publishing. If you build anything on top of Trends' related queries, check for venue and ticket intent, not just off-topic words. A filter on "tickets" catches only a few of these; named venues need their own list.
The full report
The Pets report covers 77 niches after cleanup:
- a top 10 explained one by one
- quick wins
- 6-month projections with tested error ranges
- a seasonal calendar and top regions
- a Google Trends link for every number
It comes as a PDF and an Excel file, and is updated monthly: Rising Niches: Pets.
Limits: Google Trends values are relative interest, not search counts, and the scores rank ideas against each other. They don't measure competition.
