When the going gets tough, it’s possible that the tough go to Craigslist.  A fresh report from Hitwise indicates that searchers have become extremely interested in the site, actually putting it ahead of MySpace and establishing it as the top U.S. search term for the middle of March.

Heather Dougherty writes, "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."  Meanwhile, queries for ‘myspace’ decreased by 7 percent during the same period.

 (Credit: Hitwise)

Craigslist can thank the recession; the connection between a ruined economy and the popularity of an online classifieds site is impossible to ignore.  A nod to eBay might be in order, too, since searches for this competitor decreased by 15 percent, and at least a small transfer of buyers and sellers probably took place.

Looking for mattresses set by the curb hasn’t necessarily become more popular than communicating with friends, though.  Even as MySpace lost a little ground, searches for Facebook became common, with year-over-year growth of 415 percent taking place.

Craigslist may enjoy more than a few months on top, then, but it’ll have to keep an eye out for Mark Zuckerberg’s social network attempting to change the order of things yet again.