Controversy around Using Search for Politics

The New York Times had a story today on “A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data” which comes right off two themes the New Politics institute has been promoting recently in our Tools Campaign. There have also been a spate of other stories recently on what some call “Google-Bombing,” the practice of using search optimization techniques to get certain websites or articles on the web to get returned higher in search queries at search engines like Google. Two of the stories featured NPI’s work: MSNBC had one called “Political Bloggers Coordinate Google Bombs,” and another site had “Web strategists tout candidate use of search ads.”

The two themes NPI has promoted are: using search optimization techniques to ensure that progressive candidates get their messages as high as possible in search queries, and buying search ads. As the stories point out, buying search ads is probably the quickest, cheapest, and most effective thing that progressives candidates could do in the last weeks before the election. Spread the word – a these stories are doing.

Peter Leyden

New Politics Institute