Keyword Ideas, Volume & Difficulty – Google

Keyword research from seed keywords: Google keyword ideas with monthly search volume, CPC, competition, a 0–100 difficulty score, search intent and 12-month trend. Licensed data through the DataForSEO Labs API, nothing scraped. $3 per 1,000 ideas plus $0.10 per lookup.

Who this is for

SEO strategists, content teams, PPC managers and AI agents expanding a topic into the keywords worth ranking for: start from a handful of seeds, get thousands of ideas ranked by volume with the difficulty and intent that decide what to write first.

Sample output

{
  "keyword": "goyard bag",
  "search_volume": 550000,
  "cpc_usd": 0.31,
  "competition": "HIGH",
  "competition_0_1": 0.98,
  "keyword_difficulty": 5,
  "main_intent": "transactional",
  "trend_monthly_pct": -18,
  "trend_quarterly_pct": 0,
  "trend_yearly_pct": 172,
  "core_keyword": "go yard bag",
  "words_count": 2,
  "google_categories": "[10021,10178,10937]",
  "low_top_of_page_bid_usd": 0.03,
  "high_top_of_page_bid_usd": 0.47,
  "latest_month": "2026-08",
  "latest_month_volume": 1000000,
  "monthly_searches": "[{\"year\":2026,\"month\":8,\"search_volume\":1000000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":7,\"search_volume\":1220000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":6,\"search_volume\":1000000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":5,\"search_volume\":673000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":4,\"search_volume\":301000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":3,\"search_volume\":301000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":2,\"search_volume\":246000},{\"year\":2026,\"month\":1,\"search_volume\":301000},{\"year\":2025,\"month\":12,\"search_volume\":368000},{\"year\":2025,\"month\":11,\"search_volume\":301000},{\"year\":2025,\"month\":10,\"search_volume\":246000},{\"year\":2025,\"month\":9,\"search_volume\":301000}]",
  "seed_keywords": "laptop,gaming laptop,laptop bag",
  "location_code": 2840,
  "language_code": "en",
  "row_key": "goyard bag|2840|en",
  "source_url": "https://dataforseo.com/apis/dataforseo-labs-api"
}

What you get

One row per keyword. Every row also carries _source (attribution) and the recipe version.

Field	Type
keyword	string, always present
search_volume	number
cpc_usd	number
competition	string
competition_0_1	number
keyword_difficulty	number
main_intent	string
trend_monthly_pct	number
trend_quarterly_pct	number
trend_yearly_pct	number
core_keyword	string
words_count	number
google_categories	string
low_top_of_page_bid_usd	number
high_top_of_page_bid_usd	number
latest_month	string
latest_month_volume	number
monthly_searches	string
seed_keywords	string
location_code	number, always present
language_code	string, always present
row_key	string, always present
source_url	string

Ideas, volumes, CPC and difficulty come from the DataForSEO Labs API under its licence; the actor never scrapes Google or an SEO tool. keyword_difficulty is the supplier's 0–100 estimate of how hard the top 10 is to enter, from the link profiles of the pages ranking today.

main_intent is informational, navigational, commercial or transactional. competition_0_1 is Google Ads competition on a 0–1 scale, trend_*_pct give the volume change over the last month, quarter and year, core_keyword is the shorter head term an idea belongs to, and google_categories lists Google's product-category ids as JSON. monthly_searches holds twelve monthly values (newest first) as JSON. CPC and bids are null where Google shows no advertisers.

Ideas are the supplier's semantic expansion of the seeds, biggest volume first, so a seed like "laptop bag" also brings bag brands; use minSearchVolume and the core_keyword column to narrow, and set maxItems to what you need: the supplier is asked only for that many.

Each supplier request carries up to 200 seeds and returns up to 1,000 ideas; longer result sets continue automatically. One lookup ($0.10) is billed per request on top of the per-idea price, so 1,000 ideas cost $3.10.

Bring your own DataForSEO credentials in the two optional inputs if you prefer the supplier charge on your own account; the row price stays the same.

Pricing

Pay per keyword: $0.003 each ($3.00 per 1,000), plus $0.10 per lookup (up to 1,000 ideas). The first 20 rows of every run are free; a 20-keyword test therefore costs $0.10.

How to run

1. Keep the defaults for the standard sample, or set the inputs (listed last, below).
2. Run. Results land in the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel.
3. From code or an agent: call it through the API, or as an MCP tool via mcp.apify.com.

Source and fair use

Data: DataForSEO Labs API (Google keyword ideas, volume, difficulty), licensed. The data is bought from the supplier under its API terms on every run; nothing is scraped from any website. Rows are facts about keywords, and no personal data of individuals is included.

FAQ

How fresh is the data? Each run fetches live from the source. Can I get more fields? Open an issue naming the field and where it appears at the source. Something broke? Open an issue. Issues are answered within 12 hours. Found it useful? A short review on this page helps other people find it, and tells us what to improve.

Inputs

• seedKeywords: One seed keyword per line (commas also work), up to 200 per request. The supplier returns the keyword ideas Google associates with these seeds, biggest search volume first.
• location: Country the volumes and difficulty are for (Google Ads location).
• language: Language of the searches.
• minSearchVolume: Skip ideas below this monthly search volume. 0 = keep everything the supplier returns, including ideas with no volume data.
• sandbox: Use the supplier's test environment: same row structure, dummy numbers, no supplier charge. For wiring tests only.
• dfsLogin: Optional: your own DataForSEO API login. Leave empty to use ours.
• dfsPassword: Optional: your own DataForSEO API password. Leave empty to use ours.
• maxItems: Stop after this many rows.