Despite survey results to the contrary and concerns of their viability in times of economic uncertainty, Internet searches for gift cards continue to surge this holiday season . If we look at the following chart of search term volume on “gift cards” we see that while we are experiencing a slight decrease over the previous year (this week’s data, update expected Monday, will provide insight into the anticipated peek for searches), searches are far from the 51% decrease reported by shoppers in the above survey.

Since our search behavior shows increased numbers of words per query (as we become more sophisticated in our queries) we should also examine the breadth of our “gift card” searches.

Breadth has increased over the previous holiday season, with top gift card searches including; Visa, American Express, iTunes and WalMart. Analysis of the full list of “gift card” variations reveals that discount stores are the clear winners this year, but here’s the surprise, when we compare the top gift card searches this year compared to last year, the second hand market via Craigslist appears to be flourishing.

A quick search for “gift cards” on Craigslist in various markets reveals several listings with sellers discounting cards as much as 20% off their face value.