Hey online activism fans! I’ve got a couple fun items for you this afternoon. Let’s drop some hyperlink bombs on Republican search engine rankings!
First, over the next few weeks, there are two special elections for the U.S. House. One is in the Illinois 14th for Dennis Hastert’s old seat, and the other is in the Indiana 7th for the late Julia Carson’s seat.
Jon Elrod is the Republican nominee for IN-07. He probably won’t appreciate this news story about the time he was caught campaigning on the floor of the Indiana state legislature being the first thing people see when the search for his name on Google.
Jim Oberweis is the Republican nominee for IL-14. I would love for voters searching for information on Oberweis to find out that he was heavily fined by the FEC for using his 2004 Senate campaign to advertise for the dairy he owns.
Here is how you can help these two articles make a difference in the upcoming special elections:
- In your signature line on this, or any other community blog, including an embedded Jon Elrod or Jim Oberweis hyperlink.
- Whenever you type the words Jon Elrod or Jim Oberweis online, include embedded hyperlink to one of the articles listed above.
- If you have a blog yourself, place both Jon Elrod and Jim Oberweis into the template of your blog. You can find instructions on how to do this here.
Of course, these two Googlebomb search engine optimizations actions are just appetizers for the big one: Googlebombing John McCain. Over at Open Left, we have started to discuss which articles would best be used in that campaign. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Some of the criteria to keep in mind for choosing a good Googlebomb target are as follows:
- It is better if the article already has a decent Google ranking for searches on John McCain, making it easier to increase the ranking, and keep it elevated, over time.
- The article should have the word "McCain" in the title of the search result making it easier to optimize.
- The URL for article should have a long life span, and not in danger of being removed before the general election. This means no stories on Yahoo news, for example.
- The article should be from a well-known news source, making is less obviously a partisan attack.
- The article should be a negative news story on McCain, not an opinion piece.
With lots of negative press emerging on McCain in the last couple of days, there should be lots of juicy targets to choose from. If you have any ideas, please post them in the comments.
So, let’s Googlebomb the special elections, and get ready to bomb bomb bomb, Googlebomb McCain’s search engine ranking. As the campaigns progress, I’ll continue to post updates over at Open Left.