Google Trending Searches Scraper: New Trend Alerts

Get Google's Trending now searches for any country or US state: the search term, its rank, an approximate search volume and the news stories Google shows for it. Turn on monitoring and each run returns only the searches that are new since the last run, filtered by your keywords, and can post each one straight to Slack, Discord or Telegram. A quiet run costs nothing but the start fee.

It reads Google's public Trending now RSS feed, so it needs no login, no API key and no proxy.

What it covers: the current Trending now list per country or region (Google lists about 10 per place). What it does not cover: interest over time, related queries, Explore comparisons and history. Google's robots.txt disallows the Explore routes, so this actor does not touch them.

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the geos field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~google-trending-searches-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"geos":["US"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

Input

{
  "geos": [
    "US"
  ]
}

One code per line: a two-letter country code such as US, GB, DE, JP, IN or BR, or a region such as US-CA (California). Each line is one request to Google's public Trending now feed and returns that place's current trending searches, about 10 per country. No login, no API key. Accepted formats: US, GB, DE, JP, IN, BR, FR, AU, CA, MX, US-CA.

geos is a list of country or region codes (US, GB, DE, JP, US-CA). Codes are not case sensitive. One country returns about 10 trending searches, one row each. A code Google does not know (for example ZZ) comes back as a free row with status: BAD_FORMAT.

Filters that run after the fetch, so they cost nothing extra: Only trends containing these keywords (matches the search term or a news headline), Minimum approx. searches, and Most trends per country.

Output

One row per trending search, for example (real values captured from the feed on 2026-10-27):

{
  "geo": "US", "rank": 2, "title": "apple iphone duo", "approxTraffic": 500,
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-27T08:20:00.000Z",
  "newsItems": [{ "title": "iPhone Duo: Apple says it will replace handsets with screen problems", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c893zwlev2xpo", "source": "BBC" }],
  "feedUpdatedAt": "2026-10-27T08:40:00.000Z", "checkedAt": "2026-10-27T08:55:50.229Z",
  "trendCount": 10, "monitorStatus": "NEW_TRENDS", "isNew": true
}

approxTraffic is Google's search-volume bucket as a number (200+ becomes 200, 10000+ becomes 10000); it is a floor, not an exact count. rank is the position in Google's list for that place, 1 = top, and stays the same when filters remove the rows above it. feedUpdatedAt is the newest trend time in the feed (the feed carries no build date of its own).

query	found	status	geo	rank	title	approxTraffic	publishedAt	newsItems	feedUpdatedAt	checkedAt	trendCount	monitorStatus	isNew	firstSeenAt	trends	scrapedAt
US	true	OK				<approx. searches>							<is this trend new?>		<all trends (full list)>	1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

A miss comes back as a row with "found": false and is never charged. The status tells the misses apart: NOT_FOUND (Google's list for that place is empty right now), BAD_FORMAT (not a country or region code, or one Google does not know), BLOCKED (Google answered HTTP 429 or a bot check, which is not the same as an empty list) and PARSE_CHANGED (Google changed the feed's shape and the actor needs an update).

New trend containing my keyword to Slack, in three steps

1. Create the watchlist. Open the actor, put your country in Countries or regions (for example US), add your words under Only trends containing these keywords (for example iphone, apple), and tick Only return new trending searches since the last run. Tick Skip the first run so the channel is not flooded with today's list.
2. Add the destination. Under Send alerts to, paste your Slack incoming-webhook URL (a Discord webhook or a Telegram bot link works the same way; any other URL receives JSON for n8n or Make). Run it once: it remembers the current list and sends nothing.
3. Schedule it. Save the input as a Task and add a Schedule every 10 to 60 minutes. From then on, each new matching trend arrives as one Slack message with the term, country, rank, approximate searches and up to three news links. Runs with nothing new cost only the start fee.

A search counts as new when it was in neither the previous run's list nor any list seen in the last 24 hours, so a search that flickers across the edge of the top 10 does not alert twice.

Example runs

Paste any of these into the Input tab and press Start. All three need no key and no account beyond an Apify login.

Google trending searches today by country.

{ "geos": ["US", "GB", "DE", "JP", "IN"] }

New trending search alert for a keyword, with monitoring on (schedule this one).

{
  "geos": ["US"],
  "keywordsFilter": ["iphone", "apple"],
  "deltaMode": true,
  "skipFirstRun": true,
  "deltaName": "iphone-trend-alert"
}

Google trending news for a country: only the big trends, with their stories.

{ "geos": ["FR"], "minTraffic": 1000 }

Limits

• Trending now only. No interest over time, no related queries, no Explore comparisons and no history: Google's robots.txt forbids those routes, so they are not offered.
• About 10 trends per place. That is what Google's feed lists; "Most trends per country" can lower it, not raise it.
• Volume is a bucket. approxTraffic is Google's floor (100, 200, 500, 1000 ... 10000), not an exact count.
• Categories and time windows are not inputs. A hours=4 parameter was tried and returned the identical list, so it is not offered.
• Fresh data only. The feed changed by 2 of 10 trends in 10 minutes on a US check, so schedule monitoring every 10 to 60 minutes if you want alerts quickly.
• Alert messages are free and a message that fails never fails the run; the row's notifyErrors says why.

Pricing

Pay-per-event. A flat per-run fee covers session/proxy warmup; you're billed per item only when data is actually found and returned — see .actor/pay_per_event.json for exact prices. A miss is never charged.

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~google-trending-searches-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"geos":["US"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~google-trending-searches-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"geos":["US"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~google-trending-searches-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"geos":["{{country}}"]}, mapping the row's country into the geos array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "Google Trending Searches by Country: New Trend Alerts" — the agent will find and run this actor.