Institutional investors routinely use both search data and sentiment data. The two are often lumped into "alternative data," but they answer different questions. Search data reflects what people are doing: what they look for, where they click, what they intend to buy. Sentiment data reflects what is being said: tone of news, social posts, and filings. That difference drives when each signal leads revenue and price, and why the best outcomes usually come from using both.
This post summarizes how search and sentiment differ, when each tends to lead, and how to combine them without double-countin