Hitwise found that searches for several gas price-related search terms increased 300 percent or more for the week ending March 26, 2005 compared to a month earlier. Searches for "electric cars" are up 2,900 percent month-over-month; searches for "gas prices" are up 559 percent; "fuel economy" is up 333 percent; and search queries for "gas mileage" are up 300 percent. What's more, the market share of visits to www.fueleconomy.gov increased 334 percent month-over-month, www.gasbuddy.com rose 214 percent, and www.gaspricewatch.com rose 282 percent.

Hitwise found that searches for "hybrid vehicles" were flat, while searches for "toyota prius" increased 36 percent. Also, after "toyota" and "toyota.com," "toyota prius" was the top search term driving traffic to www.toyota.com in the four weeks ending March 26, 2005. Toyota.com was the most popular automotive manufacturer Web site during the same period.

Nineteen percent of automotive category visits originated at a search engine, and not surprisingly, Google dominated search referrals, constituting 54 percent of search visits to automotive sites for that week. Yahoo! Search followed with 28 percent, while MSN search was responsible for 5 percent of search referrals during the week ending March 26, 2005.