What Do Google Trends Scores Mean?

What Google Trends Tells Us:

Sample Data:

Google Trends tells us that its scores are based on an analysis of a portion of search volume. This means the scores are only based on a sample of available data, rather than all available data.

How are Interest Over Time Scores Calculated?:

Google Trends  tells us that it scores are relative. An “interest over time” score for any particular day / week / month is awarded on the basis of its actual search volume relative to the actual search volume of the other days / weeks / months. A score of 100 is always awarded to the day / week / month with the highest relative search volume, with the other days/ weeks / months scaled between 0 and 100 accordingly.

When a term is analysed over time within global parameters the scores are calculated using an average score (based on the scores returned from each country). This prevents search terms with high popularity in countries with heavy internet usage constantly achieving high scores.

How are Regional Interest Scores Calculated?: 

In the case of “regional interest” scores, Google Trends uses relativity in order to prevent countries with high internet usage automatically receiving the highest scores. The scores are calculated by comparing the relative popularity of the search term within each region. This data is then scaled between 0 and 100, with the country with the highest relative interest receiving a score of 100.

How Broad is the Search Volume Data Used to Calculate Scores?:

Google Trends offers users the ability to search for an exact phrase by enclosing it in quotation marks. According to the Help Centre when this function is used, scores generated are based on "specific order" search volume. This means that data from searches that include the inputted search terms in the specific order they have been entered will be used. No synonyms or variations are considered.

Google Trends also states that where no "quotation marks" are used, results include searches for the inputted terms in any order and may also include extra terms. No synonyms or variations are considered.

Understanding Google Trends

What is Google Trends?:

Google Trends is a search analysis tool that provides data on the relative popularity of search terms (or websites). Users can input a particular term or set of terms and where there is sufficient data available, Google Trends will generate a line graph, indicating how interest has risen or fallen over a period of time, as well as a table indicating the relative popularity of the search term within specific territories ("regional interest").


Google Trends also allows users to limit the analysis by content type, location, time range and category or compare terms, time-ranges and locations. Analyses parameters can be set to exclude terms or return one set of results based on the cumulative search activity of several terms.

How Does Google Trends Work?:

Where there is sufficient data available, Google Trends awards a score of between 0 and 100 to inputted search terms on a month-by-month / day-by-day basis and on a geographical basis. The meaning of these scores differ according to whether users are looking at "interest over time" or "regional interest".  

Interest Over Time:

The scores awarded by Google Trends on the "interest over time" line graph express the popularity of that term over a specified time range.


Google Trends scores are based on the absolute search volume for a term, relative to the number of searches received by Google.


The scores have no direct quantitative meaning. For example, two different terms could achieve scores of 100 in the same month, but one received 1,000 search requests, whilst the other received 1,000,000. This is because the scores have been scaled between 0 and 100. A score of 100 always represents the highest relative search volume.

Day scores are based on absolute search volume for the term within the day relative to absolute search volume on Google on the same day.  Month / week scores are calculated on the basis of the average relative daily search volume within the month / week. 

A rising line does not necessarily indicate a rise in the popularity. Instead, it may indicate that general search use has increased over the time range. A declining line does not always represents declining popularity either for the same reason. In order to gain the maximum insight from Google Trends, it is necessary to have an understanding of how internet usage might rise or fall.  

The inclusion of scores based on "partial data" is an indicator of just how up-to-date Google Trends is. Read more on partial date here: Google Trends: What Is Partial Data?

It seems likely that Global scores are based on an average score from each country. If this wasn't the case, terms that are popular in countries with high internet usage would constantly perform better than terms that are popular in countries with low internet usage.

Regional Interest: 

The scores awarded by Google Trends on the "regional interest" table / map are not directly relative to one another in a quantitative way. If this was the case, countries or cities with high internet usage or big populations, such as the United States, would permanently find themselves at the top of tables, giving the misleading impression that these countries are "most interested". 

Instead of awarding scores based on direct relativity, Google Trends utilises a kind of "double relativity".  The calculation of scores for particular territories is based on the following data: 

(1) the popularity of a search term within a particular region, relative to the total volume of search within the region over the period specified. 

(2) the relative popularity of the search term for the territory (as determined by step one above) compared to the relative popularity of the search term in other territories.

An example of how regional interest is calculated is given below:


If the search term "Facebook" accounted for 1% of total search requests in the United Kingdom from January 2004 to the present day, but 4% of total search requests in Ireland over the same period, Ireland's score would be 100, relative to the United Kingdom's score of 25.


Ireland's higher score is awarded despite the fact that 1% of total search in the United Kingdom would invariably account for a much higher actual volume of search than 4% of total search in Ireland (given the far higher internet usage / population in the UK).  

As well as generating a simple table, Google Trends also produces a heat map, which shows interest across the globe. The scores shown on the heat map are calculated in the same way that the scores in the table are calculated (ie step 1 and 2 above).