'LeBron James' surges in Yahoo! searches

CLEVELAND - The search engine Yahoo! reports that searches about LeBron James are spiking on its websites one day before the basketball star is expected to announce his decision.

Yahoo! said Wednesday that the phrase “Lebron James” is up 145 percent, putting the player in the top 240 searches in the past seven days. The company said more people searched for James than Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, and Robert Pattinson.

Yahoo! broke out the top 20 searches related to LeBron James in the past seven days:

1. Lebron James
2. Lebron James House
3. Lebron James Mother (searches up 3231% this week)
4. Lebron James Mother Arrested
5. Lebron James House Pictures
6. Lebron James Shoes
7. Betty White Lebron James
8. Lebron James Twitter
9. Cavaliers Lebron
10. Lebron James News
11. Where Lebron Will Land (tie) (searches up 945% this week)
12. Lebron James Chicago Bulls (tie)
13. Lebron James Wallpaper (tie)
14. Lebronjames.com
15. Lebron James New Team
16. Lebron James Bulls
17. Lebron James Girlfriend (searches up 203% this week)
18. Teams Pursuing Lebron James
19. Lebron James Free Agency
20. Lebron James Dunks

With regard to demographics, Yahoo! said there is a wide variety of people searching for LeBron, but 68 percent of them are men.

The search engine also released a list of the top U.S. regions searching for LeBron:

1. Cleveland (OH)
2. Chicago (IL)
3. Youngstown (OH)
4. Columbus, Oh (OH)
5. Toledo (OH)
6. Memphis (TN)
7. Dayton (OH)
8. Jackson, Ms (MS)
9. Miami-ft. Lauderdale (FL)
10. Shreveport (LA)

Here is some more detailed information provided by Yahoo! about some key cities interested in LeBron James:

Cleveland: Top 50 searches of the week on Yahoo!. Very interested in the house
Chicago: In the top 110 searches of the week on Yahoo!
Miami: In the top 260 searches of the week on Yahoo!
New York City: In the top 300 searches of the week on Yahoo!

Finally, Yahoo! released other top searches this week it considers “interesting” with regard to LeBron:

• "Lebron in Miami”
• “How to welcome Lebron to Miami”
• “Lebron James high school team”
• “Lebron James salary”
• “How old is Lebron James,”
• “Lebron James tattoos”
• “Lebron James bulls jersey”
• “Who’s the best player in the NBA today Kobe or Lebron”
• “Bill Bradley and Lebron”
• “Lebron James illuminati”

Google Trends reports that “lebron james knicks” is its second hottest search in the USA Wednesday. That phrase peaked at about 4 p.m.