Google Trends catches seasonal swings volume tools flatten

Google Trends catches seasonal swings volume tools flatten
Keyword tools report a 12-month average; Trends shows the shape. We checked 200 seasonal terms.
— 'tax software': tool showed flat 40K/mo, Trends showed a ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ March spike at 8x the August floor
— Tools' rolling average hid the 700% peak-to-trough swing
— Trends gives relative interest (0-100), not absolute volume
— Trends data is sampled and noisy under ~1K searches/day
So what: use volume tools to size the market, Trends to time the publish. A flat annual average on a spiky term will make you launch three months late.
Benchmark of the week: roughly 1 in 5 commercial keywords shows a peak-month volume more than 3x its annual average.