In the aftermath of Sarah Palin’s selection as John McCain’s Vice-President running mate, the coverage I came across was dominated by the possible drawbacks of her selection.
In this coverage the McCain campaign seemed to be failing very badly when it came to framing the discussion around her selection, but I didn’t read too much into it because after all the UK media across the political spectrum is very favourably disposed towards the Obama campaign and nearly everyone I know involved in US politics is on the Democrat side. Perhaps what I was hearing said more about where I get my US political news from than about the reality on the ground in the US?
However, taking a look at what is happening online, it looks like the McCain campaign has made a serious blunder. When there is a big news event, many people go to the internet for more news, and all the more so when the news involves someone or something they had not previously heard about.
And so, unsurprisingly, after the Sarah Palin news was announced, there was a huge surge in search traffic on Google with people looking for information about her. Indeed, the surge was so huge and sudden, Google Trends categorised the search as “volcanic”.
But the McCain campaign has failed to ensure that its version of the Sarah Palin story comes out well in search results. They not only haven’t been taking the opportunity to run good online ads targeted at people searching out information on her (as detailed over on TechPresident), but they haven’t managed to get decent entries into the search results either.
Getting a story to appear quickly near the top of Google’s search results can be a rather arcane art and isn’t fully under your control, but I know from experience of Parliamentary by-elections here in the UK that with careful preparation and execution, you can get the story about your candidate (or the other party’s candidate) up near the top of Google search results within 24 hours.
If you do a search on the US version of Google for Sarah Palin and Joe Biden you see two very different pictures.
First, how it should be done – the Joe Biden results. Top is Wikipedia (a reminder of the importance of this site as a source of information for people), then Biden’s official senate site, followed by a cluster of news results and then the Barack Obama 2008 campaign site, with various mainstream media following further down.
In an ideal world, the Obama campaign would want their site appearing higher up the search results, but they are there well up the list on the first page and it’s hard in a short space of time to overtake a long-established site such as the official Senate site. People going there though will still see all positive information about the campaign’s candidate.
All in all, someone looking up Joe Biden via these results is very likely to come away with a more positive opinion of him.
Second, how it shouldn’t be done – the Sarah Palin results. Again, Wikipedia and an official site (Alaskan Governor in this case) come out top of the websites. But the widespread popularity of one Palin photo-montage has helped the images to appear at the top – only one of which is a positive official photo that in turn links to an official (Governor) site. One is unflattering but links to a neutral Flickr account whilst the other links to an interner discussion forum.
Looking further down the search results, there is a mix of blogs and news sources, but no McCain campaign presence in sight. Indeed, the first partisan source is a Democrat blog, taking issue with some of her views.
If you scroll through to the third page of search results (which almost no-one does), then you do eventually find the official 2008 campaign presence
So for her, the person coming looking for information as to who this person newly on the national stage is, the result is much more likely to be them going away with negative information about the candidate, and even the more helpful content is content outside of the campaign’s control.
The extra time since the Biden pick, and the greater online enthusiasm for Obama (which translates into more website links, which help boost search engine rankings), both give the Obama team a helping hand over the McCain team when it comes to getting results high up the search rankings.
But to only appear on the third page this amount of time after breaking in the news is a dire result for the McCain campaign, and looking at the page they are promoting, you can see how they could have done a better job (such as by getting ‘sarah’ in the domain name, and working her full name more into the content rather than having the missed opportunties such as only using her first name in one headline).
Given what a battle there is now on over Sarah Palin’s reputation (inspired brilliance or eccentric mistake by John McCain?), it will be interesting to see if the McCain campaign manages to up its game.
Note: your experiences may vary if you try redoing these searches. However, I have done the best to emulate a typical US resident’s search (e.g. by using the US rather than the UK version of Google) and also the patterns I have picked up on seem to fairly reflect the overall search situation rather than any brief quirk of Google.
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9 Comments
I totally agree with you. I tried searching for Sarah Palin and gave up mid-way. I wonder if they will recover from this.
I don’t like Sarah Palin’s views & the direction McCain is apparently going in if he goes with her (you could have inferred that from my posts), but I must admit to finding her disconcertingly attractive. In fact, I think she is better looking than she was in her 20s, imho she wasn’t anything special then but she has matured well.
I’ll see myself out…
Shouldn’t we be heartened by what you describe? It may be that the Republicans didn’t know how to control the information-flow in the way you describe – or were unaware it was that important – but I’m relieved that no McCain staffers were sitting at desks desperately trying to restrict what I learned about their candidate. A failure by team McCain: probably. But as a liberal, I want my internet news (and all other news) as uncontaminated by higher powers as possible. So I’m feeling curiously delighted.
Good old Asquith. Let us not forget that she is, above all else, a lady for ogling at.
She isn’t bringing me any closer to supporting the Reps anyway 🙂
Asquith – better try http://www.vpilf.com
VP I’d like to…)
Incidentally, this site is now on the first page of BT/Yahoo search results. Can’t speak for Google. The official site now makes it to number four, so I suppose it was only the McCain staffers who didn’t understand the net – the Republicans have now got their act together.
Palin:
She has next to no experience in government. When ask about national security back ground or knowledge regarding foreign affairs the best Ms. McCain could come up with was “she lives right by Russia.” She has only traveled outside the country twice in her life. She belonged (as did her husband “Mr. first Dude”) to a 3rd party which among other things supports allowing Alaska to secede from the United States and feels the only thing wrong with the John Birch Society was it was to liberal! She tried to have a local Librarian fired for not banning books. Used her political office to try to have fired and smear a state trooper who is in a custody battle with her sister. Is being investigated for this and is worried enough about the outcome to have recently “lawyered up.” Currently has pretty messy family issues, recently gave birth to a son with Downs Syndrome and has a 17 year old daughter who is pregnant. Ironically she has fought sex education in the schools and availability of contraception for minors. Believes that for 9 months a woman has no right to control what is happening to her own body and is basically nothing more than a baby container. She does not believe in a women’s right to choose to end a pregnancy, even if she has been raped. Does not believe human pollution has anything to do with global warming (even Bush has had to back down on this one). Is so in bed with big oil she is willing to watch as the polar bear and beluga whales become extinct, rather than slow the possibility of drilling. She would open up one of the last great wilderness on earth to exploitation by oil interests. Laughs when hearing a fellow Republican woman being called a bitch in public (she and the woman had disagreed on several issues) I guess this does make her on par with McCain who thinks it is alright to call your wife a cunt in public. Has an undergraduate degree in Journalism for a small obscure university. She has been repeatedly described as stubborn with a vicious streak – even by family and friends. (nick name Sarah Barracuda) Did fund raising and accepted money from the same sources as Sen. Ted Stevens. Pushed for the “bridge to no where – the flipped when convenient to do so. She has been named Sen. John McCain’s VP selection for the Republican ticket. Sen. McCain is 72 years old and has reoccurring cancer as part of his health history. One can not help but question Mr. McCain’s judgment regarding her selection.
I’m surprised Michael Palin agreed to join the ticket – but maybe it’s just a big Monty Python joke…?
Russ wrote:-
“Good old Asquith. Let us not forget that she is, above all else, a lady for ogling at.”
Not me, mate. She has even worse taste in glasses than Mary Whitehouse, or the Dowager Lady Birdwood.
This is bad news for David Icke, who tells us that every action ever taken by a senior US politician is part of a carefully orchestrated plan. And I thought he was on to something until last weekend. This is a cock-up of monumental proportions. McCain is out of control. He has broken loose from his minders and is going bananas, defying every order Cheney barks at him. Imagine what he’d do in the White House with his finger on the button.
Sarah Palin is an ignorant dimwit, a nichtsein, a mediocrity, Hazel Blears with an American accent. What possessed that idiot, McCain? If only Mitt Romney hadn’t been a Mormon.
In the United States, having sexual connection with a 17 year-old girl is a felony, punishable by a long term of imprisonment. Alcohol is a total no-no for the Christian right. The revelation that Bush had a conviction for drunk driving cost him more than a million votes. The possibility that Mr Palin might to have similar tendencies will horrify the US right. The biggest clanger of all must surely be Palin’s erstwhile membership of the Alaska Independence Party. The one subject that is totally and utterly taboo in US politics is secession. They fought a civil war over it, let’s not forget. Every time McCain bangs the dime and nickel drum, he will be reminded of this.
Isn’t that picture of the student Palin sitting on a bed absolutely nauseating? You can’t quite see if she’s painted her toe-nails. Come on, what devoutly Christian, family orientated woman allows herself to be photographed in shorts?
According to David Icke, Presidential hopefuls have their bloodlines researched exhaustively (to ensure they are descended from Charlemagne, among other things). In Palin’s case, it seems, she wasn’t even Googled.
Sorry, David. This one slipped through the net.
Except. The one thing that endears her to the elite is her undying devotional love for the oil industry.