Google Trends API: interest over time, by region, related queries and Trending Now

Get Google Trends data as clean JSON for up to 5 compared search terms at a time: interest over time, interest by region (countries, states, cities or US metros) and related queries (top and rising). In the same run, get Trending Now searches for any country: realtime (4 hours), daily (24 hours), 48 hours or 7 days, with search volume, growth, related searches, categories and the top news articles behind each trend.

Plain HTTP against Google Trends' public endpoints: no browser, no login, no captcha solving. Polite by design: one request at a time, a pause between requests and exponential back-off on rate limits. $2.00 per 1,000 results.

What you can use it for

• SEO and content planning: seasonality, rising queries and the next topics to write about.
• Market research: compare brands, products or competitors on the same 0 to 100 scale, by state or city.
• Newsrooms and social media: what the country is searching for right now, with the news coverage behind each trend.
• Investing and forecasting: search interest as an alternative data signal, daily or weekly back to 2004.
• AI and RAG pipelines: feed fresh trending topics and their news links to an LLM.
• Dashboards: schedule a run every hour or day and keep a time series.

Why this Actor

• Everything in one run: many keyword sets plus Trending Now for many countries.
• Up to 5 terms compared on one scale, exactly like the Google Trends website, with the average per term.
• Any location level: worldwide, country, region (US-CA), metro (US-CA-807), and region breakdown by country, region, city or DMA.
• All time ranges: past hour to 2004 onward, or a custom YYYY-MM-DD YYYY-MM-DD range.
• Web, image, news, shopping and YouTube search interest.
• Trending Now with news: search volume, increase percentage, start and end time, active flag, related searches, category, and the top 3 articles (headline, URL, publisher, time).
• Filters and sorting for trends: by category, active only, by volume or newest.
• Reliable: fresh sessions and polite back-off on HTTP 429, a clear per-run summary, and partial results are always saved. You only pay for results saved.

Input example

{
    "searchTerms": ["chatgpt, gemini, claude", "electric cars"],
    "geo": "US",
    "timeRange": "today 12-m",
    "dataTypes": ["interestOverTime", "interestByRegion", "relatedQueries"],
    "trendingGeos": ["US", "GB"],
    "trendingHours": 24,
    "maxTrendingPerGeo": 25,
    "trendingCategories": ["Technology"]
}

This run returns 2 keyword results (one per line of searchTerms) and up to 50 trending results.

Inputs

Field	What it does
searchTerms	One search per line. Put up to 5 terms on one line, separated by commas, to compare them on one scale.
geo	US, GB, DE..., a region such as US-CA, a metro such as US-CA-807, or empty for worldwide. Default US.
timeRange	now 1-H, now 4-H, now 1-d, now 7-d, today 1-m, today 3-m, today 12-m (default), today 5-y, all, or 2024-01-01 2024-06-30.
category	Google Trends category number (0 = all), for example 7 Finance.
property	web (default), images, news, shopping or youtube.
dataTypes	interestOverTime, interestByRegion, relatedQueries (default: all three), relatedTopics (opt in, see limits). A chart you do not ask for is null.
regionResolution	auto, COUNTRY, REGION, CITY or DMA (US metros).
includeLowVolumeRegions	Also list regions with too little data (value 0).
trendingGeos	Countries (or regions like US-NY) to get Trending Now for.
trendingHours	4 (realtime), 24 (daily, default), 48 or 168.
maxTrendingPerGeo	Trends saved per location (default 25, 0 = all, often several hundred).
trendingSortBy	relevance (Google order), volume or newest.
trendingActiveOnly	Skip trends that have ended.
trendingCategories	Keep only these categories, by name (Sports, Technology...) or number.
includeTrendingNews	Top 3 news articles per trend (default on).
maxItems	Total results cap (0 = no limit). Trending results are saved first, then keyword sets.
hl, tz	Language for labels and timezone offset in minutes (Google convention, 300 = UTC-5).
requestDelayMs, maxRetries	Politeness settings. Defaults: 1.5 s between requests, 4 retries with back-off.
proxyConfiguration	Optional. Off by default.

Output examples

A keyword set result (lists shortened):

{
    "type": "keywords",
    "id": "7cea30744fd71a9b",
    "searchTerms": ["chatgpt", "gemini", "claude"],
    "geo": "US",
    "timeRange": "today 3-m",
    "timeRangeResolved": "2026-07-28 2026-10-28",
    "category": 0,
    "property": "web",
    "interestOverTime": [
        { "date": "2026-07-28T00:00:00.000Z", "timestamp": 1785196800, "formattedTime": "Jul 28, 2026", "values": [71, 24, 22], "hasData": [true, true, true], "isPartial": false }
    ],
    "averages": [{ "term": "chatgpt", "average": 69 }, { "term": "gemini", "average": 28 }, { "term": "claude", "average": 19 }],
    "timeResolution": "DAY",
    "interestByRegion": [
        { "geoCode": "US-CA", "geoName": "California", "coordinates": null, "values": [58, 25, 17], "hasData": [true, true, true] }
    ],
    "regionResolution": "REGION",
    "relatedQueries": [
        {
            "term": "chatgpt",
            "top": [{ "query": "chatgpt ai", "value": 100, "formattedValue": "100", "link": "https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=chatgpt+ai&date=today+3-m&geo=US" }],
            "rising": [{ "query": "sam altman chatgpt water usage", "value": 8500, "formattedValue": "Breakout", "link": "https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=sam+altman+chatgpt+water+usage&date=today+3-m&geo=US" }]
        }
    ],
    "relatedTopics": null,
    "trendsUrl": "https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=chatgpt%2Cgemini%2Cclaude&date=today+3-m&geo=US",
    "warnings": [],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-28T19:42:23.060Z"
}

A trending result:

{
    "type": "trending",
    "id": "675c417f4dd0a298",
    "term": "trail blazers vs lakers",
    "geo": "US",
    "hours": 24,
    "rank": 2,
    "searchVolume": 200000,
    "increasePercentage": 1000,
    "startedAt": "2026-10-28T02:00:00.000Z",
    "endedAt": null,
    "isActive": true,
    "relatedSearches": ["lakers", "lakers vs trail blazers", "damian lillard"],
    "categories": [{ "id": 17, "name": "Sports" }],
    "newsArticleCount": 63,
    "news": [
        { "title": "Game Recap: Trail Blazers 136, Lakers 129", "url": "https://www.nba.com/watch/video/game-recap-trail-blazers-136-lakers-129", "source": "NBA.com", "publishedAt": "2026-10-28T07:54:45.000Z", "picture": "https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=..." }
    ],
    "trendsUrl": "https://trends.google.com/trending?geo=US&hours=24",
    "exploreUrl": "https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=trail+blazers+vs+lakers&date=now+1-d&geo=US",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-28T19:42:01.678Z"
}

Field notes

Field	Description
type	keywords or trending. The dataset has a view for each.
values	0 to 100, relative to the highest point in the chart, one number per compared term, in the order of searchTerms.
hasData, isPartial	Google's "not enough data" flag per term, and whether the last point is still being collected.
averages	Average interest per term over the range.
timeResolution	MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, WEEK or MONTH, chosen by Google from the range.
interestByRegion	Sorted by the first term, highest first. City results include coordinates.
relatedQueries[].rising	value is the growth percentage; formattedValue is Breakout above 5,000%.
searchVolume, increasePercentage	Google's approximate searches (for example 200000 = "200K+") and growth.
newsArticleCount, news	How many articles Google links to the trend, and the top 3.
warnings	Anything Google did not return for that search, for example a chart with no data.

Run summary (key-value store OUTPUT)

Results saved, keyword sets and trending locations requested and saved (with the error for any that failed), input errors, rate limit back-offs and HTTP stats.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.002 per result saved ($2.00 per 1,000). One result is one keyword set (all its charts for up to 5 terms) or one trending search. You are not charged for failed searches, invalid input lines or results removed by filters. The only other charge is the tiny platform run-start fee every pay-per-event Actor has.

Run	Results	Price
Compare 3 brands, 12 months, US	1	$0.002
100 keywords for SEO research	100	$0.20
Top 25 daily trends in 10 countries	250	$0.50
All trends in the US for 7 days	often 500 to 1,000	$1 to $2

Set Maximum cost per run in the run options to cap spending. The Actor stops cleanly at the cap and still writes the run summary.

Limits and good to know

• Google rate limits. Google Trends limits how fast any one IP can request data and sometimes answers with HTTP 429 or a "sorry" page. The Actor never tries to solve captchas. It waits (5 s, 10 s, 20 s... up to 60 s) with a fresh session and retries, and after repeated blocks it stops starting new searches and saves what it has. Large keyword lists take about 5 to 10 seconds per search. If a run reports many back-offs, try again later or turn on Apify datacenter proxy.
• Related topics are off by default: Google currently returns that chart empty for automated requests. If you turn it on, an empty result is marked in warnings. Related queries work normally.
• A trending location Google does not support (for example ZZ) is reported as failed in the run summary and costs nothing.
• Values are relative (0 to 100), not absolute search counts, the same as on the website. Results for one keyword set are only comparable inside that set.
• Trending Now volumes are Google's rounded buckets (for example 20K+, 200K+).
• Default memory is 256 MB, which is plenty.

FAQ

Do I need an API key or a proxy? No. The Actor uses the same public endpoints as the Google Trends website. A proxy option exists for heavy use.

How do I compare more than 5 terms? Google allows 5 per chart. Put one common anchor term in every line (for example bitcoin, ethereum, solana, dogecoin, xrp and bitcoin, cardano, litecoin...) and rescale on the anchor.

What is the difference between 4 hours and 24 hours trending? 4 hours is Google's realtime view; 24 hours is the classic daily trending searches list. 48 hours and 7 days look further back.

Can I get data in another language? Set hl (for example de or ja) for labels and region names, and use the matching geo.

Legal note

This Actor reads publicly available, aggregated Google Trends data. It does not log in, bypass access controls or break captchas, and it does not collect personal data. News articles are returned as headline, publisher, time and link only. You are responsible for making sure your use complies with Google's Terms of Service and applicable law. Google Trends is a trademark of Google LLC. This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.

Support

Something not working, or want another field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab with your input. Contact: joesimo@mail.grokbot.com