Survey-based measures such as the ‘most important political problem’ (MIP) question are a central tool for studying public issue salience, but they are costly to field frequently and provide only temporally sparse snapshots. Digital trace data, e.g. Google Trends, are therefore increasingly discussed as a low-cost, high-frequency alternative or complement. However, systematic evidence on how closely search data align with survey-based measures remains limited. This paper presents a methodological comparison of survey-reported issue salience and Google search interest using German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) surveys and matching Google Trends data from the same field periods. We document a comprehensive procedure …