Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday showed a strong surge in online shopping searches, with searches for "Black Friday" up by more than 20%, year over year. Searches for "black friday sales" and "black friday ads" were both up by more than 50%, year over year.

These notable increases indicate that consumers now expect to find the weekend's hot deals prominently listed online (as opposed to solely in newspaper circulars). Some of the fastest rising search terms were "Walmart Black Friday", "Kohls Black Friday Ad", "Sears Black Friday Sales" and "Target Black Friday Deals Online", as consumers planned their purchases, based on each store's specials. Google Search was also used to develop in-store shopping strategies, as "Walmart Black Friday Store Map" surfaced as a fastest rising term, blurring the lines between online and in-store shopping.

Value minded shopping continued to reign, as searches for "printable coupons" on Thanksgiving and Black Friday were up about 50% over last year and searches for "sales" were up by more than 25%.

Consumer interest in apparel, electronics and toys was revived, as searches in the apparel and toys categories rose about 50% and searches in the consumer electronics category more than tripled over last year. This was reflected in Thanksgiving and Black Friday's fastest rising search terms, with "Toys R Us Black Friday Sale", "Best Buy Black Friday Deals" and "Black Friday Computer Deals" high on the list.

Source: Google Insights for Search, 2009.

Posted by Sara Kleinberg, the Google Retail Team