Google Keyword Research: Autocomplete & People Also Ask

What does Google Keyword Research do?

Google Keyword Research turns any keyword into hundreds of keyword ideas from Google itself: Google Autocomplete suggestions (expanded with question words, "vs", "for", "near me" and every letter a-z), the questions in "People also ask" and the related searches ("People also search for") at the bottom of the results. One row per idea, labelled with its source, position, search intent, question or not and word count, for any country and language.

Use it as a free-to-start alternative to keyword tools for SEO, content briefs, FAQ pages, PPC research or AI agents that need to know what people ask about a topic. Export to Excel, CSV or JSON, schedule it, or call it from the API.

It runs on the Apify platform, so you also get an API, scheduling, integrations (Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n) and access for AI agents through the Apify MCP server.

Why use it?

• 🔎 Long-tail keywords: Google Autocomplete shows what people actually type. The question expansion finds "how", "what", "why", "can", "vs" and "for" variants; the alphabet expansion finds "keyword a", "keyword b"... up to z.
• ❓ Questions for content and FAQ pages: "People also ask" questions plus every autocomplete idea that is a question (onlyQuestions: true keeps only those).
• 🧭 Search intent at a glance: each idea is labelled question, informational, commercial ("best", "vs", "review"), transactional ("buy", "price", "download") or local ("near me").
• 🌍 Any market: set country and language (e.g. es + es for Spain, mx + es for Mexico, br + pt-BR).
• 💸 Pay per idea, duplicates removed before charging; keywords without results are free.

How to do keyword research with Google Autocomplete

1. Click Try for free.
2. Type your keywords, one per line (up to 200 per run).
3. Choose the sources and the autocomplete expansion (questions by default).
4. Click Start. Two keywords take about 25 seconds.
5. Download the table as Excel or CSV, or send it to Google Sheets.

Input

Field	Description	Default
keywords	Seed keywords or topics, one per line (up to 200)	—
sources	Any of autocomplete, peopleAlsoAsk, relatedSearches	all three
expand	Autocomplete requests per keyword: none (~10 ideas), questions (~100), alphabet (~150), questions-and-alphabet (~250)	questions
country / language	Google country (gl) and language (hl) codes	us / en
onlyQuestions	Keep only ideas that are questions	false
maxIdeasPerKeyword	Cap the ideas (and the cost) per keyword	300
dedupeAcrossSeeds	Do not repeat (or charge) an idea already found for an earlier keyword	false
failOnError	Fail the run when nothing is found (for scheduled monitoring)	false

{
  "keywords": ["how to learn python", "best crm for small business"],
  "sources": ["autocomplete", "peopleAlsoAsk", "relatedSearches"],
  "expand": "questions",
  "country": "us",
  "language": "en"
}

Output

One row per keyword idea. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Real rows from a run on 2026-11-07 (seed best crm for small business, country us), one or two per source:

{"seed": "best crm for small business", "keyword": "best crm for small business free", "source": "autocomplete", "position": 2, "modifier": null, "isQuestion": false, "intent": "commercial", "wordCount": 6}
{"seed": "best crm for small business", "keyword": "Which CRM is beginner friendly?", "source": "peopleAlsoAsk", "position": 3, "modifier": null, "isQuestion": true, "intent": "question", "wordCount": 5}
{"seed": "best crm for small business", "keyword": "What are the top 3 CRM platforms?", "source": "peopleAlsoAsk", "position": 4, "modifier": null, "isQuestion": true, "intent": "commercial", "wordCount": 7}
{"seed": "best crm for small business", "keyword": "Zoho CRM for small business", "source": "relatedSearches", "position": 4, "modifier": null, "isQuestion": false, "intent": "informational", "wordCount": 5}

That run returned 190 ideas for 2 keywords in 25 seconds: 171 from autocomplete, 6 "People also ask" questions and 13 related searches (ideas already found by autocomplete are not repeated). With onlyQuestions: true, solar panels gave 132 questions, from "how solar panels work" to "what solar panels are the best". In Spanish (country: es, language: es, expand: questions-and-alphabet), marketing digital gave 300 ideas such as "marketing digital curso gratuito" and "marketing digital bilbao".

Data fields

Field	Description
seed	The keyword you gave
keyword	The keyword idea
source	autocomplete, peopleAlsoAsk or relatedSearches
position	Position in the list Google showed
modifier	The expansion that produced it (how, vs, a...); empty for the keyword itself
isQuestion	Starts with a question word or ends with ?
intent	question, informational, commercial, transactional or local (from its words)
wordCount	Number of words (long-tail keywords have 4 or more)
containsSeed	The idea contains the seed keyword
country, language	Google market used
status	ok; no-results or error rows are not billed

How much does keyword research cost?

Event	Price
Run start (per GB of memory, default 256 MB)	$0.001
Keyword idea	$0.0006 (about $0.60 per 1,000 ideas)

Higher Apify plans pay less per idea (SILVER −10%, GOLD −20%). Duplicates are removed before charging and keywords without results are free. Example: the 190-idea run above costs $0.115. Use maxIdeasPerKeyword or Max cost per run to cap a run.

Tips

• Most ideas: expand: "questions-and-alphabet" sends about 45 autocomplete requests per keyword.
• Fewer, sharper ideas: expand: "none" with sources: ["peopleAlsoAsk", "relatedSearches"] gives what Google shows on the results page for that exact query.
• Big lists: put up to 200 keywords in one run and turn on dedupeAcrossSeeds so overlapping topics are not charged twice.
• Search volume is not included: Google publishes volumes only inside Google Ads. Combine the ideas with Google Trends Scraper to compare interest over time.

Run it from Python or the API

from apify_client import ApifyClient  # pip install apify-client (3.x)

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("fguiraud/google-keyword-research").call(run_input={
    "keywords": ["best crm for small business"],
    "onlyQuestions": True,
})
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item["source"], item["keyword"])

Use it with AI agents (MCP)

Add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fguiraud/google-keyword-research to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client, and ask "what do people ask about solar panels?" or "find long-tail keywords for 'best crm'". Agent-friendly input: common field names such as query, keyword or topics are accepted, and an empty input runs a small sample.

FAQ

• Where does the data come from? From Google: its public autocomplete suggestions and its search result pages (People also ask and People also search for), for the country and language you choose.
• Does it include search volume or CPC? No. Those numbers are only in Google Ads; ideas from autocomplete are already filtered by Google to what people search.
• Why are there few "People also ask" questions for some keywords? Google shows that box only for some queries, and a question already found by autocomplete is not repeated.
• Found a problem or need a feature? Open an issue on the Issues tab. Replies within 48 hours.
• Did it save you time? A short review on the Reviews tab helps other people find this Actor.