We are still a year and a half away from the presidential election. Candidates from both parties have already started their campaigns. I am not following that closely but they have already participated in at least a couple of debates.
I am curious to see how these candidates were able to position their websites on the search engines since they all talk about the importance of the internet. I would think the smart ones had done some kind of optimization so their campaign websites will appear in the search results even if their names are not in the search field.
So... Here is our next webscotch game: Enter into GOOGLE "The next President of the US".
The number one result is...
Well... How come it is presented as a question? Initially I don't feel compelled to click on this link and keep looking at other results. To my surprise, I don't see any other candidate's name or website listed on the first page. Forget the targeting or optimization, none of these guys thought to use the phrase "The next President of the US" in their websites. Unbelievable!
Looking back at the first link, I realized it is not linked to Ron Paul's website. Finding no link compelling enough to click on, not wanting to go to the next search results page, I decide to take my webscotching to another search engine: Ask.com.
I love the top of the page. Look at this:
Ask.com deserves kudos for this.
Although tempted, I do not select a candidate from the drop down menu to see his/her profile. Scrolling down I still can't find a link to a candidate's official web site. How pathetic...
Not willing to give up I click on the "Next" link to see the results on the second page. Still no links to a presidential candidate's site but the following link is compelling so I click on it:
DeLay: 'Hillary Will Be the Next President' - RightNation.US
It is a forum entry quoting To Delay from a Human Events excerpt dated 12/13/06:
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said today that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) would be elected president in 2008 and would probably tap Senate colleague Barack Obama (D.-Ill.) as her running mate...
There you have it! My webscotching in search of "The next President of the US" took me a rightwing website quoting a conservative icon predicting a liberal icon Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the US.
