For the first time in three years, searches for ‘craigslist’ surpassed ‘myspace,’ highlighting the increasing popularity of online classifieds during the economic downturn.U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year. This is the first time that the query has been the top search term in the United States, having surpassed the term “myspace,” which had been the top term since March 11, 2006. Of the combined variations of the terms “craigslist” and “myspace” among the top 100 search terms for last week, MySpace terms received .95 percent of all U.S. searches and Craigslist terms received .82 percent.

Search activity is mirroring the growth in visits to both Craigslist and Facebook with the highest increase in clicks among the top five search terms.

The top U.S. search term driving the most traffic from paid listings last week was “ebay,” receiving .04 percent of paid clicks (a click is when someone searches a term and then immediately goes on to another site.among all Web sites). The share of clicks was four times higher than the second-ranked keyword for paid traffic, which was “ebay.com.” This indicates both the high volume of searches conducted on the term “ebay” and the propensity of eBay customers to click on sponsored listings.

Following both eBay terms were “yellow pages,” “home depot” and “netflix.” The percentage of paid clicks on “home depot” increased the most among the top five paid search terms last week, increasing 1,086 percent. The top 100 aggregations of paid search terms for last week and eBay terms received the most traffic, followed by MapQuest terms, Google terms, Lowes terms and Netflix terms.