Online search behavior and consumer intent: Implications for nowcasting

This paper examines online search activity's ability to capture consumers' intentions and enhance short-term forecasting of key economic outcomes. Economic decisions such as consumption and investment are typically preceded by intentions, which, while difficult to observe directly, often manifest as online information-seeking behavior. Using a large, high-frequency dataset of search activity, we nowcast U.S. consumer confidence and private consumption, finding that legal and governmental searches are associated with shifts in consumer confidence, while real estate and news-related searches add value to forecasts of private consumption. We then extend the analysis to GDP nowcasting for selected OECD economies, assessing the predictive performance of search-based indicators across different contexts. Overall, our findings highlight the value of digital attention data as behaviorally grounded signals of consumer intentions, offering a timely complement to traditional economic indicators.