Search volume data, monthly, 12 months of history

Google Ads keyword data

Google's own count of how many people search a term each month, which is how I measure demand.

Run by: Google
Since: 2000 (Keyword Planner in its current form since 2013)
Refreshed: Monthly, 12 months of history

Keyword Planner is the tool Google gives advertisers so they can see how often a phrase is searched before they bid on it. It reports average monthly searches for a term by country and language, twelve months of history, and the cost per click advertisers are paying.

I read it through the DataForSEO API rather than the advertising interface, which gives me the same figures in a form I can store next to everything else and refresh on a schedule.

Why it can be relied on

It is Google's own number. Every other estimate of search demand on the market is ultimately modelled from it or from clickstream panels; this is the source.
It is the number advertisers put money behind, which is a strong incentive for Google to keep it honest.
It is reported per country, so American demand can be separated from the rest of the world rather than guessed at.

What is taken from it

Brand demand: How many people type each brand's name into Google in a month, in the United States and worldwide. A name that is also an ordinary word or another company's name is flagged and left out of the totals until a clearer keyword is measured.
Category demand: How many people search each category's own term and the searches around it, in the United States, worldwide and by country: 10 markets for 30 categories (United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Philippines, France and Brazil), and 23 to 25 for AI girlfriend platforms, AI image editors, AI image generators, AI headshot generators, AI presentation makers, AI logo generators, AI interior design apps, AI ad generators and AI website builders. Each search-trend page lists the markets its category covers. This is the spine of each search-trend page.
Cost per click: What advertisers pay for the term, which tells you how commercial a search is.

What it cannot tell me

Google rounds and buckets these figures. A reported 135,000 is a band, not a precise count, so I compare months rather than treating a single value as exact.
The published figure is a twelve-month average unless the monthly series is shown beside it.
Adult phrases need adult keywords explicitly enabled, and some still return nothing at all. Where a brand's own name returns no volume, I measure the one-word form people actually type and say so on the page.

Where it appears on this site

Cited as Google Ads data via DataForSEO, with the month it covers, on every category’s statistics pages where it applies. In the AI girlfriend section, for example:

The source itself

This is the only page on the site that links out to Google Ads keyword data. Everywhere else, a citation links here instead, so the context travels with the number.

Visit Google Ads Keyword Planner

The other data sources

Written by Miles Foster, Owner and tester, RankDude. RankDude is not affiliated with Google Ads keyword data. How tested platforms are graded is on the methodology page; the data in use is on the AI girlfriend statistics pages.