Today we are releasing data and analysis on the top 50 search terms entered into YouTube's own search engine, revealing that 72% of searches are music related. We did this analysis using our Conversions technology which we use for custom projects for clients. We, on the Hitwise research team, requested this data when we saw the news in November that Google would be testing an auction based system for ads on YouTube.

We wondered, what kind of search terms are people entering into the YouTube site search engine that might attract paid listings. Our development team was most helpful and ran the report for us. The December data shows rapper Lil Wayne at the top of the list, followed by "twilight", "beyonce", "single ladies" and "soulja boy". (The top 20 are included at the end of this post.)

I looked at these top five terms to see whether they are seeing much paid search activity across the major search engines (Google, Yahoo! Search et al). In December, 5.10% of searches for "twilight" went to a paid listing, 3.08% for "lil wayne", 2.29% for "single ladies", 1.43% for "beyonce" and 0.28% for "soulja boy". Compared to the term "wii fit" which saw 34.24% clicks on paid listings in December this doesn't seem like much. While we can't assume that retailers will be willing to spend at the same rate for YouTube searches as for Google searches, a few paid clicks here and there can't hurt Google's earnings.

Also, further down the list are other perhaps more promising terms such as "hypnosis", "pokemon", and "bodybuilding". It will be interesting to see whether Google finally finds a way to make money from YouTube.

Heather Hopkins

Heather Hopkins is VP of Research for Hitwise UK. This piece was originally posted on Hitwise Analyst blog here. 

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