RELEVANCE & RESEARCH QUESTION Researchers increasingly use digital trace data sources such as Google Trends as an alternative or complement to survey data. However, besides technical limitations and issues of external and internal validity, several researchers have noticed issues with Google Trends’ reliability. The data are based on an unknown sample of all Google searches. Downloading Google Trends data for the exact same parameters (i.e., search term, region, time) but at different points in time can therefore produce unreliable values on Google Trends’ search index, especially for queries with low search volume. In this paper, we extend the research on Google Trends’ reliability beyond the retrieval date by examining the effect of the download location on inconsistencies across samples: Do we get different values from Google Trends depending on where we download the data? METHODS & DATA We retrieved Google Trends data for the same regions, time periods, and terms from four different countries on three continents (Austria, Germany, the U.S., and Australia). We then compared the search index values retrieved from each respective country to those downloaded in the other countries, keeping all parameters of the query constant. RESULTS Our results show that values from Google Trends differ across download locations depending on the download day and the query’s total search volume. Researchers can minimize these inconsistencies by averaging samples from several days for high search volume queries. Nevertheless, our results point to an additional limitation regarding the reliability and replicability of Google Trends data for its usage in social science research.
