Google searches for the names of Turkish provinces are significantly correlated with the number of Syrian refugees in those areas, and may be useful in estimating refugee movements. This is the main finding of the study "Search for a New Home: Refugee Stock and Google Search" by Ebru Şanlıtürk of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, and Francesco Billari of the Bocconi Department of Social and Political Sciences in which they use online search data to predict the distribution of Syrian refugees under temporary protection in Turkey. The authors concluded that Google searches are good predictors for estimating the intentions of refugee populations, especially when official data are not available.

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