How to interpret Local Search Trends Data/Graph in Keyword Tool?

[#1]

I have a huge contradiction between data in Google Trends and Keyword Planner.  If I look in Google Trends for the last 12 months for trends on 5 specific search terms in Florida, it shows the following ranking:

healthcare: 28

health insurance: 12

Affordable care act: 3

Obamacare: 11

medicaid: 19

**maybe the chart in itself could help visualize**

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Florida+Blue#q=healthcare%2C%20health%20insurance%2C%20afford...

Now I go into the Keyword Planner and look for the search volume for the same terms for the last 12 months in Florida, and look at the latest month's averages: 

healthcare:1,900

health insurance: 14,800

Affordable care act: 33,100

Obamacare: 90,500

medicaid: 27,100

HOW then could health care rank that much higher than the rest in Google Trends and worse the affordable care act display the lowest in Google Trends???

Can someone PLEASE help me explain this?? THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!

[#2]

I have a huge contradiction between data in Google Trends and Keyword Planner.  If I look in Google Trends for the last 12 months for trends on 5 specific search terms in Florida, it shows the following ranking:

healthcare: 28

health insurance: 12

Affordable care act: 3

Obamacare: 11

medicaid: 19

**maybe the chart in itself could help visualize**

[#3]

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=Florida+Blue#q=healthcare%2C%20health%20insurance%2C%20afford...

[#4]

Now I go into the Keyword Planner and look for the search volume for the same terms for the last 12 months in Florida, and look at the latest month's averages: 

healthcare:1,900

health insurance: 14,800

Affordable care act: 33,100

Obamacare: 90,500

medicaid: 27,100

HOW then could health care rank that much higher than the rest in Google Trends and worse the affordable care act display the lowest in Google Trends???

Can someone PLEASE help me explain this?? THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!

[#5 · Accepted solution]

I'd suspect this is because google trends numbers are relative while keyword planner is a lot closer to absolute. This means that while the keyword tool takes an aggregated average over x amount of time, the trends graph is looking for correlations to search behavior and adjusts the weight accordingly.

The trends graph is designed to show you whether popularity is increasing or decreasing and search terms are dependent/relative to each other. The keyword tool is designed to show you the number of searches relating to those keywords and those are metrics independent of each other. Also, keyword tool will output number based on broad, phrase or exact so you will get different numbers there too.

[#6]

I thought the new Adwords only shows exact match now. And if popularity for
"healthcare" is so high then how are searches so low? especially on trends
where as you say the terms are dependent on one another. And affordable
care act isn't very popular yet has so many searches?

[#7]

You are correct on the exact match, now you have me stumped too! Even when setting search network to Google only, it still doesn't add up...

In searching for an answer I found this which may help:

"Does a downward line indicate lower search volume?

No. A downward trending line doesn't necessarily mean that the absolute traffic for a search term is decreasing - only that its popularity (or query share) is decreasing."

https://support.google.com/trends/answer/92769?hl=en&ref_topic=13975

[#8]

Right because trends measures popularity not absolute search volume. But if popularity is so high in comparison to the other search terms how then could absolute volume be SO low.

Does google Trends search exact search terms? maybe "healthcare" as an exact term isnt so popular yet healthcare in a search phrase is very popular?

[#9]

Carl is correct ;

The trend (as the name implies ) has a normalized scale. Both tools analyze  the same data, but presented   "from  a different view" (aka OLAP cube)