Are Google Trends numbers search volumes?

No. Google divides each data point by the total searches of its place and time, then scales the results from 0 to 100. The combined chart keeps that: 100 is the highest point of any term, and every other value is relative to it.

Compare More Than 5 Terms in Google Trends

Q: Can you compare more than 5 terms in Google Trends?

Not in one chart: Google Trends compares at most 5 terms at once, and each chart is scaled so its own peak is 100. You can link several charts with one term they all share (an anchor) and rescale them onto one scale.

Q: How do I pick a good anchor term?

Pick a term about as popular as the terms you compare, so it never drops to 0 or a single digit in any chart. Google rounds to whole numbers, so a tiny anchor makes the rescaling rough.

Google Trends compares at most 5 search terms at once, and every chart is scaled so its own highest point is 100. So "milk" in one chart and "tea" in another can't be compared. This tool links your charts through one term they all share (the anchor) and puts every term on one 0–100 scale. It runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

On trends.google.com, compare up to 4 terms plus your anchor (for drinks: coffee). Download the "Interest over time" CSV (the ↓ icon on the chart).
Do the same for your next 4 terms, with the same anchor, location, time range, category and search type.
Add the CSV files below (or paste them one after another). Your terms appear on one chart.

CSV files

Anchor term

Doing this every week, or for 50 terms? Our Google Trends Scraper on Apify does the grouping, the downloads and the math: give it your list and an anchor term, and it returns one combined table (JSON, CSV or Excel), plus interest by region and related queries. Pay per use ($4 per 1,000 rows, the combined row is free; Apify's free plan includes monthly credit). Try the ready-made example (8 coffee drinks, anchor "espresso") and swap in your own terms.

How the rescaling works

Google divides each data point by the total searches of its place and time, then scales the results so the highest point in the chart is 100 (Google's explanation). The anchor is the same real-world interest in every chart, so the size of the anchor tells you how much each chart was squeezed:

Add up the anchor's values in each chart over the same dates (using the total rather than a single week evens out rounding).
Multiply every value in chart 2 by anchor total in chart 1 ÷ anchor total in chart 2. Chart 2 is now on chart 1's scale. Repeat for every chart.
Rescale everything so the highest value of any term is 100 again (one decimal).

Example (real Google Trends data, US, weekly, Aug–Sep 2026; click "Load an example"): in chart 1 coffee totals 246 over 8 weeks; in chart 2, next to milk and energy drink, coffee totals 588. So chart 2 is multiplied by 246 ÷ 588 = 0.42. Water is the biggest term (81 in the week of Aug 9), so it becomes 100, and on the same scale milk ends at 16.5, tea at 16.0 and energy drink at 2.1 in the last week.

Limits

Anchor size matters. Google rounds to whole numbers. If the anchor is 2 or 3 in a chart because the other terms are huge, the rescaling is rough (the tool warns when the anchor peaks below 10). Pick an anchor about as popular as your terms, or use two levels: a big anchor for big terms, then one of those terms as the anchor for smaller ones.
Google samples searches, so a term can come out a few points different in two downloads. Download all charts at about the same time.
Google writes values below 1 as "<1"; this tool counts them as 0.5.
Only interest over time can be combined this way. Interest by region in a comparison is each term's share of the region, which can't be rescaled with an anchor.

FAQ

Can you compare more than 5 terms in Google Trends?

Not in one chart. You can link several charts with one shared term and rescale them, which is what this page and our scraper do.

How do I pick a good anchor term?

One that is about as popular as the terms you compare and is never 0 in any chart. For brands, a mid-sized competitor; for products, the category word (coffee, shoes, laptop).

Are the numbers search volumes?

No. They are relative interest: 100 is the highest point of any term in the combined chart and 50 is half of it. Google doesn't publish absolute search counts in Trends.

Which CSV exports work?

The "Interest over time" download from trends.google.com, with daily, weekly or monthly rows, from any location. Several exports can be pasted into the box one after another.

Method checked against Google's Trends help on 2026-10-06. Questions or a wrong result: [email protected].