comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) has released a study on “iPhone”-related keyword search phrases . The data is based on information from their comScore Marketer service. The data shows that that 1.3 million people conducted 6.9 million searches for iPhone-related terms in April 2008.

Typically, we have searched on sorts of Apple iPhone-related topics, but the most common keyword search phrase is strictly the keyword “iPhone”. That one keyword generated almost 1.5 million searches. According to comScore, other keyword search phrases ranking high on the list were several keyword phrases related to the upcoming “next generation” iPhone, which includes “iPhone update” (151,000), “iPhone 2.0″ (75,000) and “iPhone 3G” (60,000).

What I find interesting is that the phrase “iPhone Speakers” is showing up as a top keyword search phrase.

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For those interested, here are the exact numbers that have been released:

  Top "iPhone"-Related Search Terms
  April 2008
  Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore Marketer
  Search Term                 Searches (000)
  IPHONE                              1,488
  IPHONE UPDATE                         151
  IPHONE WEB APPS                       118
  IPHONE MMS                            101
  IPHONE 2.0                             75
  IPHONE 3G                              60
  IPHONE 2                               59
  IPHONE G3                              43
  IPHONES                                38
  IPHONE SPEAKERS                        35

Of the iPhone-related keyword search phrases that generated click-thrus, the vast majority (88.4 percent) occurred on Google, which is actually 33 percent higher than comScore expected given Google’s market share of total Internet search click-thrus. What’s interesting to note is that all other search engines actually generated a lower percentage of iPhone-related clicks than their respective market shares of total search clicks.

  Share of Search Clicks for "iPhone"-Related Search Terms
  April 2008
  Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore Marketer
                          Percent of Search    Percent of Total
  Search Engine            Clicks for Term      Search Clicks        Index
  Google                               88.4%             66.5%         133
  Yahoo                                 7.2%             20.0%          36
  MSN-Windows Live                      2.7%              6.9%          39
  AOL                                   1.2%              3.8%          32
  Ask.com                               0.6%              2.9%          19
  *Index = Percent of Search Clicks for Term/Percent of Total Search
   Clicks x 100; Index of 100 represents parity

comScore said today, “Not surprisingly, the top destination for iPhone-related searches was Apple Inc., which attracted 17.5 percent of all search click-thrus. Of those click-thrus to Apple Inc., 16.5 percent were the result of paid search and the remaining 83.5 percent were from organic search results. Google Sites, which host significant iPhone-related content on YouTube and Blogger sites, ranked second with 8.8 percent of iPhone-related click-thrus, nearly all of which came from organic search results. NetShelter Technology Media, which owns several Apple and iPhone-specific content sites, ranked third with 8.4 percent.”

ComScore went on to say that “among the top ten destinations, AT&T, Inc. — the lone cell phone carrier for iPhones in the U.S. — had the highest proportion of their search clicks coming from paid links (42.8 percent). Several of the top ten sites had no paid search strategy, but still managed to generate a substantial share of total clicks through organic results.”

  Paid vs. Organic Click-Thrus for "iPhone"-Related Search Destination
  Properties
  April 2008
  Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore Marketer
                         Percent of Total      Percent of Click-Thrus to
  Destination Property    iPhone-Related          Destination Property
                           Click-Thrus            Paid           Organic
  Total Clicks              8.77 MM             0.61 MM          8.16 MM
  Apple Inc.                  17.5%               16.5%            83.5%
  Google Sites                 8.8%                0.7%            99.3%
  NetShelter Technology
   Media                       8.4%                0.0%           100.0%
  AOL LLC                      6.5%                0.0%           100.0%
  Gawker Media                 5.1%                0.0%           100.0%
  CNET Networks                3.7%                0.0%           100.0%
  AT&T, Inc.                   3.3%               42.8%            57.2%
  International Data Group     3.1%                0.0%           100.0%
  Yahoo! Sites                 2.7%                1.3%            98.7%
  ILOUNGE.COM                  1.8%                0.0%           100.0%

Comments

At press time, shares of Google were off nearly 3 percent from their opening price. A paid click report issued by comScore and distributed to analysts gave investors cause for concern that the ad market online could be slowing.

The free-wheeling growth that pushed Google well over $700 per share simply has not existed in 2008. Analysts cited by Bloomberg blamed the current economic conditions and Google’s expulsion of poorly performing ads from its network.

“February data from ComScore suggests that Google’s paid click volumes in the U.S. aren’t getting meaningfully better,” UBS’s Benjamin Schachter said in the report. He also noted comScore numbers, naturally, don’t “correlate accurately” with UBS estimates on Google’s sales.

Over at Reuters, Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth dropped the firm’s target for Google shares to $580. They also lowered estimates for Google’s first quarter and full year earnings due to economic concerns.

Google has enjoyed the ride their one-trick pony, contextual search, delivered over the past couple of years. While no one is predicting Yahoo, Microsoft, or Microsoft/Yahoo will dethrone that business, investors feel the natural jitters when their investment’s major revenue stream shows weakness.

As we have noted before, Yahoo believes ads and not a Microsoft takeover offers shareholders the best chance to profit from Yahoo’s business. CEO Jerry Yang has one bit of good news to bolster his argument.

ComScore pointed us to the assessments from Bear Stearns and Citigroup regarding Google’s lack of growth year-over-year for January. Bear Stearns echoed the viewpoint of search marketers that the economic slowdown meant fewer people clicking on ads:

comScore reported 532mn domestic paid clicks in Jan. 08, flat YoY, but down 12% sequentially (Jan. 08 vs. Oct. Oct. 07). The click through rate was the lowest since comScore stated reporting this data and was down 200bp from levels in 4Q and down 400bps from levels in 1Q of last year. While this is one data point for domestic google.com only and from one source, which may or may not be accurate, it is a concerning ata point and somewhat reflects what we have heard from SEMs – that they were not seeing a high volume of clicks from consumers possibly due to the economic slowdown.

Meanwhile, Yahoo and its revamped search ad system enjoyed year over year growth in January, up 15 percent year over year, although it was down sequentially. Despite the post-holiday slowdown, Yang and company should be thrilled with that improvement.

Microsoft, well, they have work to do. Paid clicks down 9 percent year over year in January, flat after the holidays. Kevin Johnson probably isn’t having a great week right now.

Microsoft Gains Not Our Loss, Says Yahoo

To illustrate that point, Yahoo passed along more comScore figures. The May and June 2007 qSearch reports showed the number of queries made by US Internet users with the top five search destinations, (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask, and AOL).

Drops by Yahoo and others from May to June were only percentage decreases, not purely numeric ones. Of the five engines, only AOL/Time Warner Sites lost queries from May to June, moving from 348 million to 341 million.

Everyone else gained as the total queries jumped from 7.6 billion in May to 8 billion in June. Microsoft’s rise, attributed to its Club Live promotion driving more use of Live Search, just grabbed more of what was available in its 36 percent increase in query volume.

People aren’t switching away from Yahoo or Google. Microsoft just experienced a welcome increase in search traffic.

Yahoo had 244.6 million paid clicks in June. That represented a 32 percent increase year over year, and a 12.7 percent rise from May. Google led with 469.4 million paid clicks in June, while Microsoft trailed Yahoo in gathering 101.6 million paid clicks for the month.