Google Trends API

The Google Trends API turns the trending-searches feed into typed rows: one line per trend, carrying the query, Google's approximate traffic band, when it surfaced and the news stories Google pinned to it. You ask for a country, you get today's rising searches back as data instead of a chart you have to screenshot.

There is one thing to be clear about up front, because everyone asks it: this reads the trending now surface, not the interest-over-time graph. It answers 'what is spiking in this country right now', not 'how has interest in a keyword moved over five years'. Each run pulls up to 20 trends for a single country over the TLS tier — no headless browser to boot or babysit — and every row ships with the articles Google attached, so you can see why a term is climbing. For the mainstream coverage behind a spike, pair it with the Google News API.

$0.0005 per delivered trend, up to 20 trends per run. Nothing delivered means nothing charged.

How the Google Trends API works

You send a country (ISO alpha-2) and an optional max_results up to 20. The collector reads Google's trending-searches feed for that storefront through a residential exit in-region and flattens it into rows.

Three details matter before you wire it in:

Inputs

Only country and max_results exist here — there is no query to tune, because the trending feed is a fixed daily surface per storefront. country selects both the feed and the matching proxy exit; max_results caps delivery at 20, the length of the feed Google publishes.

What one trend looks like

Each trend is one flat row. query is the rising term, approx_traffic its traffic band as text, published when Google surfaced it, and articles the attached news stories as an array of title, url and source. image is a representative thumbnail when Google shows one. No field carries a historical series — this snapshot is today's feed.

What the Google Trends API costs

$0.0005 per delivered trend ($0.50 per 1,000). Nothing delivered means nothing charged, and the $2 monthly free credit covers roughly 4,000 trends here. Volume tiers take up to 30% off.

$0.0005 per delivered trend, $0.50 per 1,000. Since a country's feed tops out around 20 trends, one poll costs a fraction of a cent; the spend only adds up if you poll many countries on a tight schedule. A run that sweeps 50 storefronts every hour is roughly 1,000 rows an hour — about $0.50.

The monthly free allowance ($2, no card) covers about 4,000 delivered trends, and volume tiers take up to 30% off. GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns the price your key actually pays.

Google Trends API vs the official one

There is no official Google Trends API. Google has never shipped a public, documented endpoint for Trends data — the ecosystem runs on undocumented internal endpoints the site itself calls, and on open-source libraries that wrap them and break whenever Google reshuffles the payload.

This collector sits on the same undocumented surface but takes the maintenance off your plate: when the feed's shape changes, the parser is fixed on our side, and you keep getting typed rows against a published schema. What it does not do is invent the interest-over-time series those unofficial libraries are known for — that is a different, heavier surface, and claiming a clean number for it would be dishonest.

Versus polling the feed yourself

Reading one country's feed once is a single request — trivial. The friction shows up when you want every storefront, often, without your own IPs getting throttled:

If you would rather keep your own fetcher and just want reliable in-country exits under it, that network is our residential proxies.

What people build with it

Newsroom and social trend-spotting

Poll the feed for your markets every few minutes and alert on new entries. Because articles arrives attached, an editor sees the term and the coverage behind it in the same row.

Regional demand signals

Sweep the same list of country codes on a schedule and diff the feeds to see which topics rise in one market before another — an early read that a category is heating up.

Ad and content timing

Match a rising query to a product you sell and you have a same-day hook. The traffic band tells you whether it is a blip or a genuine spike worth spending against.

Limits, coverage and the legal bit

One run returns one country's trending feed, up to 20 rows — that is the length Google publishes, not a cap we impose. There is no interest-over-time, no per-keyword history and no custom time range: those live behind a different surface this collector does not touch, and it will not fabricate them. Runs are independent and parallelise up to your plan's rate limit — 60 requests a minute on pay-as-you-go, up to 1,200 on the top tier.

Legally: the trending feed is public and reading public data is generally lawful in most places, but Google's terms restrict automated access and the analysis differs by country. This is background, not legal advice — get advice for your specific use.

FAQ

Is the Google Trends API free?

There is a free monthly allowance rather than a permanent free tier: $2 of usage a month with no card, which at $0.0005 per trend is roughly 4,000 delivered trends. There is no official free Google Trends API to fall back on — Google publishes none.

Does it return interest over time?

No. This collector reads the trending-now feed only — the day's rising searches with a traffic band and attached news. The interest-over-time graph is a separate surface it does not cover, and it will not invent a number for it.

Do I need a Google API key for Trends?

No. You authenticate with your QuantumProxies API key and nothing else. There is no Google Cloud project, no OAuth and no Trends-specific credential, because Google ships no official Trends API to hold a key for.

How much does the Trends API cost?

$0.0005 per delivered trend, $0.50 per 1,000, with no subscription. A country's feed is about 20 rows, so a single poll is a fraction of a cent. Volume tiers take up to 30% off, and GET /v1/scraper/collectors returns your key's live price.

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