Every topic on TrendSpry gets a single number: a Trend Signal score from 0 to 100. It is the number the whole site is built around, so it is worth being precise about what it actually means — and what it deliberately does not claim.
What it measures
The score compares a topic's recent mention volume in tracked sources against its own historical baseline, and expresses how far above or below "normal for this topic" the current activity is. A topic scoring 80 is showing unusually strong activity relative to its own history; a topic scoring 20 is quiet relative to its own history. The direction label (rising, falling, flat, new) captures which way that number has been moving.
What it does not claim
This is the part most trend tools gloss over, and TrendSpry is built specifically not to. The score is not a prediction. It does not claim to know what will happen next week, and it is not the output of a black-box machine learning model making a forecast. It is a measurement of what has already happened, reported as honestly and plainly as possible — read the full breakdown on How It Works.
That distinction matters in practice. A high score means "this is genuinely more active right now than usual" — not "this is guaranteed to keep growing." Treat it as a strong, real signal to prioritize your attention, not a guarantee of an outcome.
Why country-level, not city-level
TrendSpry reports scores at the country level (plus a worldwide rollup), and deliberately does not offer city-level breakdowns. This is a disclosure choice, not a limitation we are hiding: no free or legitimately licensed data source currently provides real, city-granular trend data. Rather than fabricate numbers that look precise but are not real, the site simply does not report at that resolution. If that changes, it will be disclosed the same way the data source for every topic already is.
How the score should change your behavior
In practice, the score is most useful as a prioritization tool, not a crystal ball:
- Use it to decide where to look first among dozens of possible topics, rather than guessing.
- Use the direction alongside the score to judge timing — a rising 60 is often a better bet than a falling 80.
- Use the Opportunities filter when you want a pre-filtered shortlist instead of scanning the full ranking yourself.
- Treat every number as a starting point for your own judgment about your specific audience, not a replacement for it.
The goal is to answer "what is actually gaining momentum right now" as honestly as possible — not to sound impressively precise about something inherently uncertain.