In a 17-page report out this morning, chock-a-block with graphs and other sciencey stuff, Citigroup Internet analyst Mark S. Mahaney names Google (GOOG) the company’s “#1 choice” in what it calls “Top Picks Live,” a “dynamic list of stocks to buy or sell today.”

Based on “extensive channel checks,” says Mahaney, Google looks on track to make the $3.82 billion in sales and $4.73 per share in earnings he’s projecting for the second quarter that ends this month. That’s slightly below the $3.86 billion the Street is currently looking for, though Mahaney’s profit estimate is slightly ahead of a $4.27 a share estimate.

In the near term, Mahaney’s chats with search engine marketers, firms that place ads on keyword searches such as those Google sells, say “search trends remain generally robust in Q2,” according to Mahaney. That should help the quarter. One marketer embodied the positive attitude toward Google generally, notes Mahaney, commenting that “Google is demand rich and inventory rich,” as regards keyword search. Competitors such as Yahoo (YHOO) and Miorosoft (MSFT) are poor on both counts, according to that source. Mahaney says survey research from “SEMPO,” the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, indicates keyword search should remain strong the next 12 months, and marketers should increase their keyword search spending in 2008.

Longer term, writes Mahaney, Google is poised to benefit from two important additional sources of revenue, one being mobile search, from phones (especially Android-based phones, I would suppose), and from display advertising, in addition to keyword search.

Mahaney has a $630 price target on Google, and he thinks the stock has troughed at 25x this years’s projected EPS.

Today, Google shares are up $2, or .4%, at $530.15.

Source: ByTiernan Ray, Barrons, Tech Trader Daily, 30/06/08)