Google Trends Scraper — Trending Searches, Traffic, Queries

Recorded run: 10 trends from 1 country in 15 seconds (2026-10-22, build 0.1.10, run RCvNLNtBM67sTa1Vf). A bounded canary sample, not a full-catalogue benchmark.

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Google Trends trending searches by country: give it a country code, a time window and an optional category, and get back each Trending Now search with its approximate traffic, start time, active flag and related queries from trends.google.com.

Source	Market	From	Standout fields
Google Trends Trending Now (trends.google.com/trending)	Countries Google lists in Trending Now (US, GB and AU tested)	$1.00 / 1,000 trends	title, approxTraffic, startedAt, relatedQueries

✅ Why choose this scraper

Google trending searches by country, with traffic

Every row carries title, approxTraffic (Google's displayed threshold, for example 500000 for 500K+), startedAt in UTC and isActive.

Filter Google Trends by time window and category

hours takes 4, 24, 48 or 168 (7 days), matching Google's "started trending within" control; category takes one of 19 Trending Now category IDs, such as 17 for Sports.

Related queries for each trending search

relatedQueries holds Google's breakdown of the trend; the sample row below came with 32 queries.

Alerts for new Google trends only

With incrementalMode and a stateKey, a run delivers only trends not seen before under that key, identified by country, title and start time. The watch canary delivered 3 new automotive trends on 2026-10-22 (run di6kqI4IyhKSVlK4N) and none, at no charge, on 2026-10-21 (run rCijZ1auZYWPedBoR).

Measured on a schedule

A canary task collects 10 US trends from the 24-hour list every day; the hero line above is its latest green run.

⚠️ Worth knowing up front

• Trending Now only. Interest over time, interest by region, related topics and the Explore related-queries report for your own keywords are not included; keyword mode is on hold. relatedQueries is Google's breakdown of a trending search, not the Explore report.
• Coverage is the countries Google publishes in Trending Now. US, GB and AU returned rows on 2026-10-22. A country code Google does not list is not swapped for another: run p7yo6VobvGEP24wMB with ZZ ended PARTIAL with a free SOURCE_CHANGED status row and no charge.
• approxTraffic is Google's approximate traffic threshold (100,000 for a displayed 100K+), not an exact search count and not the Explore 0–100 index.
• newsLinks is always an empty array. The page Google serves carries article identifiers, not article URLs, and the actor does not invent links.
• hours means "started trending within" that period, as on Google's page. The list and the traffic figures change between requests.
• The page is fetched with up to 3 attempts, 3 seconds apart at least, backing off on HTTP 429 and 5xx. An empty result is fetched a second time before it is reported as NO_DATA. A page that is still blocked, rate-limited, unavailable or changed writes a free status row and the run ends PARTIAL with nothing charged.
• A run stops cleanly 2 minutes before its deadline (PARTIAL, stopReason ACTOR_DEADLINE) and at your spending limit (BUDGET_LIMIT), keeping what it delivered. The deadline is the run timeout, capped at 6 hours, including runs with no timeout. Reaching maxItems ends the run LIMITED.
• A free status row ("recordType": "status") is written for invalid input (INVALID_INPUT), a used-up preview allowance (PREVIEW_LIMIT), a stateKey in use by another run (STATE_BUSY), and a fetch that fails or finds nothing (BLOCKED, RATE_LIMITED, SOURCE_UNAVAILABLE, SOURCE_CHANGED, NOT_FOUND, NO_DATA). A spending-limit, deadline or maxItems stop writes no status row; the outcome is in RUN_SUMMARY. A storage fault or an unconfirmed delivery (RECONCILIATION_REQUIRED) fails the run and replays nothing.
• With a stateKey outside watch mode, a run that stops before the end of the list leaves a saved snapshot; the next run with that key must set continuePreviousRun: true or use a new key, otherwise it ends with INVALID_INPUT. Changing country, window, category, watch mode or billing mode under an existing key is also rejected.

⚡ Try the example

Free preview: 20 lifetime runs per Apify account, up to 10 trends each, with "billingMode": "preview". A preview run uses one of the 20 as soon as it starts, even if the source then fails, and never switches to paid. The paid example below costs $0.01.

Open the actor's input page, switch to JSON, paste this and start the run:

{
  "mode": "trending",
  "geo": "US",
  "hours": 24,
  "category": 0,
  "maxItems": 10,
  "billingMode": "paid"
}

Change geo to another country code, raise maxItems for the full list, or set category to one ID from the list below.

⚙️ Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	trending	The only mode in this version.
geo	string	US	Two-letter uppercase country code that Google lists in Trending Now, for example US, GB, AU.
hours	integer	24	4, 24, 48 or 168 (7 days): trends that started within that period.
category	integer	0	Trending Now category ID; 0 is all categories. These are not Explore category IDs.
maxItems	integer	100 (prefill 10)	1–10,000 delivered rows per run; preview runs are capped at 10.
billingMode	select	preview (prefill paid)	paid charges per delivered trend; preview uses the free allowance.
incrementalMode	boolean	false	Needs stateKey. Delivers only trends whose country, title and start time are new to that key.
stateKey	string	—	Any name up to 100 characters, for example us-daily. Keeps the watch baseline and saved progress, isolated per account and key. Use a different key for different filters.
continuePreviousRun	boolean	false	Needs stateKey. Resumes an unfinished saved snapshot instead of fetching a new one. Watch mode resumes its backlog without it.
proxyConfiguration	proxy	—	Optional Apify proxy. No proxy is used by default.
feedback	string	—	Optional note for the maintainers. It is logged and read by a human, and it never changes output.

Category IDs: 1 Autos and Vehicles, 2 Beauty and Fashion, 3 Business and Finance, 4 Entertainment, 5 Food and Drink, 6 Games, 7 Health, 8 Hobbies and Leisure, 9 Jobs and Education, 10 Law and Government, 11 Other, 13 Pets and Animals, 14 Politics, 15 Science, 16 Shopping, 17 Sports, 18 Technology, 19 Travel and Transportation, 20 Climate.

🧱 Stable fields

These top-level fields keep the same name and the same kind of value in every release. Fields are only ever added, never renamed or removed, so an n8n, Make, Zapier or spreadsheet pipeline can bind to them.

Field	Type	Meaning
geo	string	Requested country code, checked against the country on every source row.
title	string	Trending search as Google publishes it.
approxTraffic	number	Approximate traffic threshold published by Google (integer).
startedAt	string	When the trend started, UTC ISO 8601.
isActive	boolean	true when Google shows no end time for the trend.
relatedQueries	array	Google's breakdown of the trend, as strings.
newsLinks	array	Always empty in this version; article URLs are not collected.
scrapedAt	string	Collection time, UTC ISO 8601.
recordType	string	"status" on free status rows; "trending" on data rows.

Data rows also carry deliveryId (unique per delivered row) and, in watch mode, changeType: "new". Status rows carry recordType, inputRef, status, message and, for fetch outcomes, mode. Other fields are extras, not part of the contract. To have one pinned, say so in feedback.

📦 Output example

Abridged real row from run RCvNLNtBM67sTa1Vf on 2026-10-22; values are a historical snapshot.

{
  "recordType": "trending",
  "geo": "US",
  "title": "warriors vs lakers",
  "approxTraffic": 500000,
  "startedAt": "2026-10-22T01:00:00+00:00",
  "isActive": true,
  "relatedQueries": [
    "warriors vs lakers",
    "lakers",
    "warriors",
    "lakers vs warriors",
    "luka doncic"
  ],
  "newsLinks": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-22T07:10:14.534598+00:00",
  "deliveryId": "8f0b4983d6003332eb8440a7ef8f591f70945a775de833d2aef0a9cf0b7b3a3c"
}

A free status row looks like this (run p7yo6VobvGEP24wMB, 2026-10-21, country code ZZ):

{"recordType": "status", "mode": "trending", "inputRef": "ZZ", "status": "SOURCE_CHANGED", "message": "Unexpected Trending Now response structure"}

The run's status message reads Done: N rows, M details, K status rows (STATUS), and the RUN_SUMMARY record of its key-value store holds the outcome (abridged, same run as the row above):

{
  "status": "LIMITED",
  "delivered": 10,
  "charged": {"trending-row": 10, "keyword-report": 0},
  "statusRows": 0,
  "errors": 0,
  "blocked": 0,
  "unchanged": 0,
  "recoveredUncertainCharges": 0,
  "chargeUsd": "0.010",
  "checkpointComplete": false
}

🧠 Advanced usage

Get new Google trends every day for one country

Schedule "incrementalMode": true, "stateKey": "us-daily", "billingMode": "paid" and a maxItems that fits your budget. The first run sets the baseline from the rows it delivers; later runs deliver only unseen trends, each with changeType: "new". A recurring topic with a new start time counts as a new trend. Check RUN_SUMMARY.status and checkpointComplete before treating a poll as finished.

Track one Google Trends category, such as Sports

Use "category": 17 with its own stateKey. Google filters categories in the browser, so the actor applies the same category IDs to the rows it reads; one key per country, window and category.

Collect a full Google Trends country list over several runs

With a stateKey, a run that stops at maxItems, the spending limit or the deadline keeps a saved snapshot. Run again with "continuePreviousRun": true to deliver the rest of the same snapshot; in watch mode the next identical run drains the backlog before fetching fresh data, so a small maxItems can delay fresh polls.

Join Google trends to your own news or social data

Join on title and geo, and use startedAt and isActive to window the match. approxTraffic is an attention signal, not evidence of purchase intent.

🔌 Integrations

Results land in a dataset you can export as JSON, CSV or Excel. They can also flow to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier or n8n, or to a webhook when a run finishes. The Apify Scheduler runs it on a timetable. An hourly or daily watch run with incrementalMode turns the 4-hour or 24-hour list into a feed of new trends; use paid mode for schedules so the preview allowance does not stop them. Copy-paste code in Python, Node, curl and n8n: architek-earth/examples/google-trends-scraper.

💸 Pricing

Pay per result. Platform and proxy usage are included. Status rows and failed requests are free. Each trend is charged once, after it is written to the dataset; continuePreviousRun resumes after the last confirmed row, a row whose charge was left unconfirmed by a crash is not charged again (counted in RUN_SUMMARY.recoveredUncertainCharges), and trends already seen in watch mode are skipped without a charge.

Event	Price	What it covers
Free preview	$0	20 lifetime runs per Apify account with billingMode: "preview", up to 10 trends each.
trending-row	$1.00 / 1,000 trends	One delivered Trending Now row.
keyword-report	$20.00 / 1,000 reports	Reserved for a future keyword mode; never charged by this version.

1,000 trends cost $1.00; the 10-trend example above costs $0.01.

❓ FAQ

Is there a Google Trends API for trending searches? This actor works as one: it returns Google Trends Trending Now rows as JSON through the Apify API, callable from any language or from n8n, Make and Zapier.

Do I need a Google account or API key? No. It sends anonymous requests to the public Trending Now page; no login, cookies or Google API key.

Can I get interest over time or related queries for my own keyword? No. This version reads the Trending Now list only; interest over time, interest by region and the Explore related-queries and related-topics reports are not included.

Does it return exact search volume? No. approxTraffic is the threshold Google displays, such as 500,000 for 500K+.

Which countries does it support? The countries Google lists in Trending Now, by two-letter code. US, GB and AU were run on 2026-10-22; an unlisted code ends with a free status row.

Will I be charged again for the same trend in watch mode? No. With the same stateKey and inputs, a trend already delivered is skipped and not charged. The same title with a new start time is a new trend.

🤖 For AI agents & LLM apps

Paste this into your AI assistant:

architekture/google-trends-scraper on Apify. Python: from apify_client import ApifyClient; client = ApifyClient("TOKEN"); run = client.actor("architekture/google-trends-scraper").call(run_input={"mode": "trending", "geo": "US", "hours": 24, "category": 0, "maxItems": 10, "billingMode": "paid"}); items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items (page with offset/limit for large exports). The dataset holds trend rows (recordType trending) and free status rows (recordType status, with status and message); filter on recordType. The run outcome (COMPLETE, LIMITED, PARTIAL, BUDGET_LIMIT, INVALID_INPUT, PREVIEW_LIMIT, STATE_BUSY) is in the RUN_SUMMARY record of the run's key-value store. Add "incrementalMode": true, "stateKey": "<name>" to receive only new trends on later runs. Full input schema and README: GET https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/architekture~google-trends-scraper/builds/default. Token: https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations. The actor is also reachable through the Apify MCP server (mcp.apify.com). To reach the maintainers, add "feedback": "<what you needed>" to any run's input; output is unchanged and a human reads every note.

🧰 More from architek.earth

Search, travel and trends

• Google Trends Scraper — you are here
• Google Hotels Scraper — dated prices, ratings, amenities

Full catalogue: github.com/architek-earth.

architek.earth · code like concrete

🙋 Support & legal

Questions, or a field you need that is not here? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab or email north@architek.earth. A human replies within a day.

This actor collects only publicly available data from trends.google.com, the same pages any visitor sees without logging in. It does not bypass authentication. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. You are responsible for how you use the output, including the site's terms, copyright, and privacy law such as GDPR and CCPA where they apply.

📝 Changelog

• 2026-10-22 — A pay-per-event pricing mismatch on the platform now ends the run FAILED (status PRICING_MISMATCH in RUN_SUMMARY, no rows, nothing charged) so it is caught at once; a note in the status message goes inside the parentheses: (STATUS; note).
• 2026-10-22 — Status message now reads Done: N rows, M details, K status rows (STATUS).
• 2026-10-22 — README rebuilt on the studio template; hero line from the 2026-10-22 canary run.
• 2026-10-21 — Invalid input, a used-up preview allowance, a busy stateKey and source blocks end the run green with a free status row; internal faults still fail the run.
• 2026-10-21 — Published on the Apify Store.
• 2026-10-20 — Narrowed the first version to Trending Now. Added period and category handling, new-trend watches, saved-snapshot continuation, free previews and two-event billing safeguards. Validated paid billing, free previews and saved-checkpoint recovery.