CircuitCity.com Traffic Going to Best Buy, Radio Shack

With CircuitCity.com shut down (at least for now), it appears Best Buy and Radio Shack are gaining a big boost to their online traffic — and it looks like it’s coming directly from their old competitor.

Metrics firm Hitwise looked to see where surfers searching for Circuit City-related terms were ending up now. Not surprisingly, the number of them actually going to CircuitCity.com has sharply dropped. The number going to BestBuy.com and RadioShack.com, though, has jumped quite a bit.

Best Buy took in 20 percent of downstream traffic from CircuitCity.com last week, Hitwise says. Walmart.com, Kmart.com, and Sears.com also snagged respectable shares. Other sites seeing traffic from Circuit City-related search queries include CNET, Chase Banking, Yahoo, Closeouts EZ, The Consumerist, and PC World.

The free ride may not last forever, though: As we reported last month, another organization could end up buying the CircuitCity.com domain and identity, even using the site to sell electronics under the Circuit City brand.