Google Trends & Keyword Research API

Give it a list of keywords; get back, per keyword, everything you need to judge search demand:

• Interest over time with ISO dates, plus computed growth %, year-over-year growth, trend direction, peak, volatility and seasonal peak month
• Related queries and related topics, top and rising (including "Breakout")
• Interest by region (states for a country, countries for worldwide)
• Keyword ideas from Google Autocomplete, expanded with question and intent modifiers (how, best, vs, for, alternative, free...)
• Trending Now for a country (optional)
• Side-by-side comparison of up to 5 keywords on one 0–100 scale (optional)

Google Trends values are a 0–100 index relative to the highest point in the chosen geo and timeframe. They are not absolute search volumes. Every item carries a valueNote saying so.

Why this actor

Google has no public Trends API and pytrends is archived, so Trends scrapers break when Google rate-limits them. This actor warms Google cookies, follows the explore → widget-token flow, and rotates proxy sessions with exponential backoff on every 429. When one part fails (say, region data), you still get the rest, with the reason in errors; you are only charged for items that contain data.

Benchmark

On 26 Oct 2026 we ran the same 50 keywords (US, past 12 months) through this actor and the most-used Google Trends actors on the Store:

	Keywords with data	Run time	Notes
This actor	50 / 50	175 s	One run, all 50 keywords, plus related queries, regions and Autocomplete ideas
Most-used Trends actor	34 / 50	157 s	One keyword per run, 50 runs
Apify's Google Trends scraper	1 / 50	621 s (stopped)	Stalled on rate limits
Another all-keywords actor	50 / 50	831 s	About 20x the cost per keyword
Two other actors	—	—	Accept at most 5 keywords per run

The script and raw results are in bench/.

Input

Field	Default	Notes
keywords	—	One report per keyword. Free-plan runs are capped at 10.
geo	US	Two-letter country code; empty = worldwide.
language	en
timeframe	today 12-m	now 7-d, today 1-m, today 3-m, today 12-m, today 5-y, all
category	0	Google Trends category ID.
searchProperty	web	youtube, images, news, froogle (Shopping).
includeTrends / includeRegions	true
includeYoY	true	Year-over-year growth. Adds one Trends query per keyword for timeframes under 5 years.
includeTrendingNow	false	Works with an empty keyword list.
includeAutocomplete	true
autocompleteExpansion	questions	none (1 query), questions (23), full (49, adds a–z).
compareInOneChart	false	Groups of 5.
maxConcurrency	3	Keywords researched in parallel (1–5), each on its own proxy session.
proxyConfiguration	Residential	Strongly recommended.

Example: agent call

{
  "keywords": ["ai video editor", "notion templates", "cold email software"],
  "geo": "US",
  "timeframe": "today 12-m",
  "autocompleteExpansion": "questions",
  "compareInOneChart": true
}

Output

One item per keyword (type: "keyword"), plus optional trendingNow and comparison items.

{
  "type": "keyword",
  "keyword": "notion templates",
  "geo": "US",
  "timeframe": "today 12-m",
  "valueNote": "Google Trends values are a 0-100 index ...",
  "metrics": {
    "dataPoints": 52, "average": 61.4, "latest": 72, "peak": 100,
    "peakPeriod": "2026-01-04", "growthPct": 18.2, "trendDirection": "rising",
    "slopePerPeriod": 0.41, "volatility": 0.17, "seasonalPeakMonth": "Jan",
    "yoyGrowthPct": 12.5, "yoyDirection": "stable",
    "yoyWindow": { "from": "2026-09-27", "to": "2026-10-18", "comparedWithFrom": "2025-09-28", "comparedWithTo": "2025-10-19" }
  },
  "interestOverTime": [{ "date": "2025-10-26", "formattedTime": "Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2025", "value": 58, "isPartial": false }],
  "relatedQueries": {
    "top": [{ "query": "free notion templates", "value": 100, "formattedValue": "100" }],
    "rising": [{ "query": "notion ai templates", "value": 4250, "formattedValue": "Breakout" }]
  },
  "relatedTopics": { "top": [], "rising": [] },
  "interestByRegion": [{ "geoCode": "US-WA", "geoName": "Washington", "value": 100 }],
  "risingQueryTerms": ["notion ai templates"],
  "keywordIdeas": [{ "suggestion": "notion templates for students", "sources": ["seed", "suffix:for"], "rank": 2, "timesSuggested": 2 }],
  "keywordIdeasCount": 87,
  "errors": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T17:30:00.000Z"
}

growthPct compares the average of the last quarter of the window with the first quarter. trendDirection is rising at +15% or more, falling at −15% or less, otherwise stable. The partial (in-progress) last period is excluded from metrics.

growthPct describes the shape of the chosen window, so a seasonal keyword looks like it is "rising" as its season approaches. yoyGrowthPct compares the latest 4 weeks with the same 4 weeks one year earlier, which is the number to use for "is this market actually growing?".

Use it from an AI agent (Standby / MCP)

The actor also runs in Apify Standby mode as an always-on web server, so agents get answers in one HTTP call with no run to start or dataset to fetch.

MCP (streamable HTTP, stateless): POST https://<your-standby-url>/mcp with your Apify token as Authorization: Bearer <token>.

Tool	What it returns
research_keywords	1–5 keywords: metrics, rising/top queries and topics, top regions, keyword ideas
compare_keywords	2–5 keywords on one 0–100 scale, ranked by average interest
trending_now	Today's trending searches for a country

Every tool takes geo, timeframe, language, searchProperty and detail (summary by default, which returns metrics and top-10 lists to save tokens, or full).

REST

GET /research?keywords=notion%20templates,crm&geo=US&timeframe=today%2012-m&detail=summary
GET /compare?keywords=notion,obsidian,evernote
GET /trending-now?geo=GB

Standby calls are charged with the same events as batch runs, and only for results that contain data.

Pricing (pay per event)

Event	When
keyword-report	One keyword item with Trends or Autocomplete data
comparison-report	One comparison item (up to 5 keywords)
trending-now-report	One Trending Now item

Items that come back empty are not charged. The run stops cleanly when your maximum charge is reached.

Local development

npm install
npm test
apify run --input '{"keywords":["notion templates"]}'