# Google Trends Scraper — Trending Now & Interest Over Time (`actor-forge/google-trends`) Actor

Google Trends scraper and API: Trending Now searches for 125 countries from the official feed (traffic, start time, picture, news articles), plus best-effort interest over time, by region and related queries for your keywords. $0.50 per 1,000 trends; rate-limited parts are free.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/actor-forge/google-trends.md
- **Developed by:** [ActorForge](https://apify.com/actor-forge) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Marketing
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.50 / 1,000 trend results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Google Trends Scraper — Trending Now & Interest Over Time

Google Trends scraper and API: Trending Now searches for 125 countries from the official feed (traffic, start time, picture, news articles), plus best-effort interest over time, by region and related queries for your keywords. $0.50 per 1,000 trends; rate-limited parts are free.

**Google Trends scraper and Google Trends API alternative** with two parts. **1. Trending Now (reliable):** the **trending searches** for any of **125 countries**, read from Google's official Trending Now RSS feed. One row per trend: country, rank, keyword, **approximate search traffic** (parsed to a number, e.g. `2K+` → 2000, plus the original text), the time the trend started, a picture with its source, and the **news articles** behind it (title, URL, publisher, picture). Turn on **Only new trends since the last run** and schedule it hourly to get a clean feed of new trending topics per country for alerts, newsrooms, content calendars, SEO and ad campaigns. **2. Interest over time, by region and related queries (best-effort):** add up to 20 keywords and get **interest over time** (one row per date, 0-100 per keyword, compare up to 5 at once), **interest by region** (countries, states or cities) and **top + rising related queries** (with `Breakout` / `+250%` growth), for any timeframe (past hour to 2004-present, or a custom date range), any country or region, category, and web / news / YouTube / images / Shopping search. This part uses the JSON endpoints the Trends website itself calls, and Google rate-limits them: when Google answers 429, 403 or a CAPTCHA, the actor stops that part, delivers what it has and **charges nothing for keywords it could not finish**. Plain HTTP, 256 MB, honest user agent, no proxies, robots.txt respected. **$0.50 per 1,000 trending searches, $3 per 1,000 keywords explored**; failed and rate-limited parts are free.

📘 **Step-by-step guide:** [How to Track Google Trends Trending Searches by Country](https://devtaonas.github.io/actorforge-site/guides/google-trends-trending-searches-by-country/)

### What data does it return?

Every run outputs clean, schema-validated rows like these:

| geo | rank | keyword | approxTraffic | approxTrafficText | startedAt | newsCount | topNewsTitle |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| US | 3 | slayground | 2000 | 2000+ | 2026-10-20T14:00:00.000Z | 3 | The First ‘Slayground’ Trailer Teases Death as a Treat |
| GB | 1 | interest rate | 200 | 200+ | 2026-10-20T14:10:00.000Z | 3 | The Treasury market has been acting weird lately |
| DE | 2 | psg barca | 500 | 500+ | 2026-10-20T14:10:00.000Z | 3 | Fußball: Wird der Champions-League-Knaller verschoben? PSG – Barça |
| BR | 2 | tocantins | 2000 | 2000+ | 2026-10-20T13:30:00.000Z | 3 | Os números da pesquisa Real Time Big Data para governo do Tocantins no 2º turno |

### How much does it cost?

Transparent pay-per-event pricing — you only pay for what you get, and the
actor **always respects your run budget**: set a maximum total charge and it
stops cleanly at the cap instead of overrunning.

| Event | Price | Charged | Worked example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `trend-result` | $0.0005 | per Trending Now row (keyword, traffic, start time, picture, news articles) | 10 countries × 10 trends = $0.05; an hourly 'only new' schedule pays only for trends it hasn't returned before |
| `keyword-explored` | $0.003 | per keyword whose interest over time, interest by region and related queries were all fetched (every row for it included) | 5 keywords = $0.015 for ~90 timeline rows + regions + 50 related queries each; keywords Google rate-limited are free |
| `apify-actor-start` | $0.00005 | per run per GB of memory (platform start fee) | One run at 256 MB = $0.0000125 |

### Input options

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `geos` | array | no | `["US"]` | Countries to read Trending Now for (one request per country). All 125 countries the official feed accepts are listed. Leave empty to only explore keywords. |
| `maxItemsPerGeo` | integer | no | `10` | Upper limit of trending searches per country. The feed currently lists up to 10 per country (fewer for small countries). |
| `onlyNewSinceLastRun` | boolean | no | `false` | For schedules: skip trends this monitor already returned (same country, keyword and start day). Skipped trends are not charged. |
| `monitorName` | string | no | `"default"` | Name of the seen-trends memory used by 'Only new trends' (stored in the key-value store trends-seen-\<name>). Use one name per schedule. |
| `keywords` | array | no | `[]` | Search terms to explore (up to 20). Each keyword returns interest over time, interest by region and top + rising related queries. Values are relative (0-100) within each comparison. |
| `keywordsPerComparison` | integer | no | `5` | Keywords are compared in groups of this size (Google allows at most 5). Use 1 to explore every keyword on its own scale. |
| `timeframe` | string | no | `"today 12-m"` | Time range for interest over time, regions and related queries. |
| `customTimeframe` | string | no | `""` | Optional "YYYY-MM-DD YYYY-MM-DD" range; overrides Timeframe. |
| `exploreGeo` | string | no | `""` | Country (US), region (US-CA) or empty for worldwide. Regions in the output are the next level down (countries, states, ...). |
| `category` | integer | no | `0` | Google Trends category id (0 = all categories; e.g. 71 = Food & Drink, 7 = Finance). |
| `property` | string | no | `"web"` | Which Google search property to measure. |

### Limits & honest notes

- Trending Now comes from Google's official RSS feed, which currently lists about 10 trends per country (fewer for small countries) — the newest ones, not the full Trending Now page with 24/48-hour filters. Traffic is Google's bucketed estimate (200+, 2K+, 1M+), not an exact count.
- The 125 countries in the input list are every ISO country code the feed accepted on 2026-10-20; Google answers unknown codes with an error.
- Interest over time / by region / related queries is best-effort. It uses the same JSON endpoints as trends.google.com and Google rate-limits them, especially from shared cloud IPs. On a 429, 401/403, CAPTCHA or 'unusual traffic' page the actor stops that part for the rest of the run (blocks are never retried and no proxies are used; only network errors and Google 5xx errors are retried once), delivers what it already has and charges nothing for unfinished keywords. Run small keyword lists and try again later if you are blocked.
- Requests are sequential and paced (one every 3 seconds for explore, one per second for the feed), so 20 keywords take about 1-2 minutes.
- Values are Google's relative scores (0-100 within a comparison, region values 0-100 per keyword), not search volumes. Related 'rising' values are growth percentages; 'Breakout' means more than +5000%. Regions without enough data are left out.
- robots.txt on trends.google.com is re-read every run and respected: the /explore? web pages are never requested (trendsUrl in the output is only a link for you to open).
- The run's spend limit is respected: rows are charged before they are delivered and the run stops when the limit is reached.

### Related ActorForge actors

- [Google Ads Transparency Scraper — Competitor Ads | $0.60/1K](https://apify.com/actor-forge/ads-transparency) — see which competitors are advertising on the keywords that trend
- [App Store & Google Play Scraper — Apps, Charts, Reviews](https://apify.com/actor-forge/app-store-scraper) — track app chart moves next to search interest for the same brands
- **Learn more:** [How to Track Google Trends Trending Searches by Country](https://devtaonas.github.io/actorforge-site/guides/google-trends-trending-searches-by-country/)

### Changelog

- **2026-10-20** — Initial release: Trending Now for 125 countries (traffic parsed to numbers, start time, picture, news articles), only-new-since-last-run monitoring, and best-effort interest over time, interest by region and top/rising related queries with a hard stop on rate limits.

***

*Built and maintained by **ActorForge**. Reliability first: every actor in the
portfolio is monitored by an automated nightly self-test, and breakages are
typically fixed the same day.*

# Actor input Schema

## `geos` (type: `array`):

Countries to read Trending Now for (one request per country). All 125 countries the official feed accepts are listed. Leave empty to only explore keywords.

## `maxItemsPerGeo` (type: `integer`):

Upper limit of trending searches per country. The feed currently lists up to 10 per country (fewer for small countries).

## `onlyNewSinceLastRun` (type: `boolean`):

For schedules: skip trends this monitor already returned (same country, keyword and start day). Skipped trends are not charged.

## `monitorName` (type: `string`):

Name of the seen-trends memory used by 'Only new trends' (stored in the key-value store trends-seen-<name>). Use one name per schedule.

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Search terms to explore (up to 20). Each keyword returns interest over time, interest by region and top + rising related queries. Values are relative (0-100) within each comparison.

## `keywordsPerComparison` (type: `integer`):

Keywords are compared in groups of this size (Google allows at most 5). Use 1 to explore every keyword on its own scale.

## `timeframe` (type: `string`):

Time range for interest over time, regions and related queries.

## `customTimeframe` (type: `string`):

Optional "YYYY-MM-DD YYYY-MM-DD" range; overrides Timeframe.

## `exploreGeo` (type: `string`):

Country (US), region (US-CA) or empty for worldwide. Regions in the output are the next level down (countries, states, ...).

## `category` (type: `integer`):

Google Trends category id (0 = all categories; e.g. 71 = Food & Drink, 7 = Finance).

## `property` (type: `string`):

Which Google search property to measure.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "geos": [
    "US",
    "GB"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerGeo": 10,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": false,
  "monitorName": "default",
  "keywords": [],
  "keywordsPerComparison": 5,
  "timeframe": "today 12-m",
  "customTimeframe": "",
  "exploreGeo": "",
  "category": 0,
  "property": "web"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `trending` (type: `string`):

Trending searches per country (type = trend).

## `results` (type: `string`):

Every row: trend, timeline, region and related (see the type field).

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "geos": [
        "US",
        "GB"
    ],
    "keywords": []
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("actor-forge/google-trends").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "geos": [
        "US",
        "GB",
    ],
    "keywords": [],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("actor-forge/google-trends").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "geos": [
    "US",
    "GB"
  ],
  "keywords": []
}' |
apify call actor-forge/google-trends --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,actor-forge/google-trends"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/ljDbnRwE6xo6FVwlb/builds/yZU0mokOWH2yYi1LX/openapi.json