Google Trends is where most investment teams start when they want to use search data. It is free, fast, and visually intuitive. And for a quick sanity check or a press-friendly chart, it is fine. But the moment you try to use it seriously, as a repeatable, normalized input into an investment process, it fails in six different ways.
This guide explains exactly why, what the best alternatives are, how they compare across the dimensions that matter institutionally, and why the gap between consumer-grade trend tools and institutional-grade behavioral data has never been wider.