Google researchers Hyunyoung Choi and Hal Varian combined data from Google Trends on the popularity of different search terms with models used by economists to predict trends in areas such as travel and home sales, resulting in better forecasts in almost every case.

Google has demonstrated before that search data can predict flu outbreaks, and last week World Bank economist Erik Feyen said he could cut errors in a model that forecasts lending to the private sector by 15% using Google search data.