The top searched political topics for both presidential candidates in the second quarter of 2008 included, health care, global warming, education, and immigration according to Hitwise.

Top issue searches included abortion for Obama and oil prices for McCain. Abortion and immigration were the two common search term issues for both candidates. Obama political issue searches focused on gay marriage, gun control, education and immigration.

McCain political issue searches included Health care, Global warming and the Economy.

Other popular searches for Obama included information on his family, merchandise and his speeches and quotes. For McCain, searches were for information on his speeches and quotes, his age and his jokes.

“Searches show that voters on both sides of the aisle have shared concerns around issues such as health care, global warming and immigration,” said Heather Dougherty, research director, Hitwise. “This has implications for what content should be featured on the candidates’ websites, and broadly across all communications with voters.”

Hitwise looked at the top 200 U.S. search terms that sent visits to the candidate’s Web sites. The most common type of searches to Obama’s Web site was for biographical information or basic facts about the candidate. For McCain’s site the most popular search was for the candidate’s stance on major issues.

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