Google Trends never tells you how many. It tells you "100" for the busiest moment in the window you picked, and everything else is a percentage of that. Change the date range and every number on the chart changes with it.
If you want real numbers, use Wikipedia page views. Every Wikipedia article has a public view count, month by month, going back to 2015. It's free, it needs no API key, and it counts actual people who opened the article. I built a free Google Sheet, the Wikipedia Trends Tracker, that pulls five years of those views for any two topics and charts them side by side.
The short answer
The best free Google Trends alternative for real numbers is Wikipedia's pageviews API. It gives you the number of people who read an article each month, not a relative score. You can chart it in Google Sheets by pasting two Wikipedia links into the Trends Tracker template.
Why Google Trends' 0 to 100 score is hard to use
Google Trends is great for one question: "is this going up or down compared to itself?" It's frustrating for almost every other question.
- No volume. A score of 50 could be ten thousand searches or ten million. You can't tell.
- The scale moves. Every chart is rescaled to its own peak. Add a third term or shift the dates and the old numbers are gone.
- Small topics flatten. Compare a niche topic to a big one and the niche one sits on the floor at 0 or 1.
- Hard to keep. You can export a CSV, but next month's export is on a different scale, so you can't just add a row.
What Wikipedia page views give you instead
When someone wants to actually understand a topic, they often end up on Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation counts every one of those visits and publishes the numbers through a free, public API.
- Real counts. "12,000 people read this article in March" is a number you can quote, compare, and add up.
- Fixed scale. March's number doesn't change when you add a second topic.
- Human readers. Wikimedia separates people from known bots and crawlers, so you can count humans only.
- Long history. Monthly data back to July 2015, so five years is easy.
There's a difference in what each one measures, too. Google Trends measures searching. Wikipedia measures reading. A quick search and a ten-minute read on Wikipedia are different kinds of interest, and it helps to have both.
How to use it in Google Sheets, step by step
- Go to the Trend Tracker page and get the free template. Make a copy in your Google Drive.
- Open the COMPARE TWO tab.
- Paste a Wikipedia link into URL 1, for example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickleball. - Paste a second link into URL 2, for example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis. - Read the chart: five years of monthly views for both pages on one chart, plus a small chart for each page on its own scale.
No code, no API key, no signup with Wikimedia. The sheet makes the calls for you.
A real example: Pickleball vs Tennis
This is the comparison that made me build the sheet. Tennis is the older, bigger sport by almost any measure. But on English Wikipedia, the Pickleball article gets more human readers than the Tennis article.
From Wikimedia's API (English Wikipedia, human readers only): in 2025, the Pickleball article had about 1.49 million views. The Tennis article had about 552,000. Google Trends could tell you pickleball was "rising." It couldn't tell you it was being read almost three times as much.
You can see the live chart on the Pickleball vs Tennis page. A few more real comparisons worth a look: Barbie vs Oppenheimer, Notion vs Obsidian, and Google Sheets vs Excel.
When to still use Google Trends
Use both. Google Trends is better for search-specific questions, like which phrasing people type, or what's spiking this week in one country. Wikipedia page views are better when you want a number you can trust next month, a long history, or a fair comparison between a big topic and a small one.
A good habit: when Google Trends shows a spike, check Wikipedia. If the reading line spikes and then settles higher than before, people are staying interested. If it falls straight back, it was a moment.
FAQ
Does Google Trends show real search numbers?
No. Google Trends shows search interest on a 0 to 100 scale relative to the busiest point in your chosen time and place. It doesn't show actual search counts.
Is Wikipedia page view data free?
Yes. The Wikimedia pageviews API is public, free, and needs no key or signup.
Can I compare more than two topics?
Yes. The template also has a COMPARE THREE tab that puts three pages on one chart.
Does it work for topics that aren't on Wikipedia?
No. You need a Wikipedia article for each topic. Most brands, products, people, places, and ideas with any real following have one.
Want real numbers instead of a 0 to 100 score? Get the free Wikipedia Trends Tracker, paste two links, and you'll have five years on one chart in under a minute.
