Round #2 of the 2008 Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-Off (see Round 1 here) excites as new debates and mud-slinging color each day’s top news. CNN and YouTube tore the cover off the ball with the debate at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. No one likes Hillary’s Pink suit and cleavage, and John Edwards will never be able to get away from the ever growing costs of his hair cut; by the way, did he consult with “The Donald” on that one? And, Dennis Kucinich…well, he’s another story yet again. Is it just me or does Kucinich look like death warmed-over. Perhaps it is just that his politics are dead?

As we approach 2008, the primary season heats up spurring evermore intrigue as to how candidate names will be reflected in search. Greg Sterling posted about the CNNYT debate at Search Engine Land and how video will start to creep into search results. YouTube Video of Rudy Giuliani has crept into Rudy’s name search (#8). It’s the video of Rudy in Drag Smooching Donald Trump. Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim has put together an interesting and informative reputation management study to track if candidate name searches return positive, negative or neutral information. Interestingly enough, I have Obama ahead in June and Andy Beal notes in his study overview “Of those candidates with the most name recognition, only Barack Obama achieved zero negative sentiment results.” I’m sure there are other writers and bloggers covering these issues and related subjects, so please let us know if and where you are.

In Round #1 covered in June, 2007 with my very basic, “scholastic” rating scale, Barack Obama had the overall most favorable search marketing results, most clearly communicated messages and strategy on page 1 of Google for his name search:

• Obama scored an A-
• Hillary Clinton scored a B+
• Mitt Romney scored a B
• Rudy Giuliani scored a B-

Each of the candidates holds either the top 1 or 2 or both spots on the organic listings, so that’s positive for all of them and a strong foundation for their campaigns.

It should be noted that in my coverage of this Presidential candidate name search, I am searching the Presidential candidate names from New York and as such, paid search results may be deeply affected by Google’s geo-targeting features in AdWords. For example, Republican candidates may not aggressively pursue sponsored search ads in New York as we are a “Blue State”. Or perhaps campaign staff search marketing teams, geo-target New York specifically as it is considered a hot bed of contribution money, particularly from young wing-tipped Wall Streeters who’ll contribute the max to a campaign.

So following is a summary of what I see to date :

Candidate #1: Rudy Giuliani

#1 Organic Result – Official website www.joinrudy2008.com

(note: at one point in the day the #1 result was pushed by Google One Box with News Results)

#2 Organic Result – Wikipedia Page

#3 Organic Result – Bio from NYC Government site.

SERP Results – 2.2 mm

Stats on Canidate’s Official Website:

PageRank – 6

Age of Website – 2007 (formerly showed 1998)

Official Site Using Google AdWords? – Yes

Official Site AdWords Top Result Copy –

Join Team Rudy in ‘08
Support Mayor Rudy Giuliani Contribute Now at the Official Site

Search Marketing Grade: B

I’m upgrading Giuliani’s team on this round due to a better Paid Search call to action and some other positive organic results which they may or may not be fully influencing. At this phase of the campaign it’s all about fund-raising. In essence most voters know where Rudy stands on issues, so now they are addressing money and fund-raising in the top paid search result. “Contribute Now” is a strong and positive call to action for this sponsored ad copy. They should watch out though because Mitt Romney’s team is buying “Rudy” and “Giuliani”-based keywords which display ads for joining and contributing to Mitt’s team. Solution to combat Romney: Spend a little more. Of note: StumbleUpon reviews on Google Result is showing the official site tagged as “Politics” (at least from my account) Results #3 through #6 are showing NYC.gov bio from his mayoral days, Draftrudygiuliani.com and time.com 2001 Person of the Year profile – respectively. These are all solid results and relatively positive developments for the former NYC Mayor.

As well, http://www.rudygiuliani.com/ is still live and pointing to the domainer’s content and that’s just nasty and ugly for Rudy. I’m still asking Rudy to please do something about this. I did a quick domain tools lookup on this one and here you go Rudy:

Registrant:
Zev Adler
3 west Maple Ave,
Monsey, New York 10952
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: RUDYGIULIANI.COM
Created on: 25-Aug-98
Expires on: 24-Aug-14
Last Updated on:

Read more about Zev Adler and other cybersquatters here in the Sydney Morning Herald and from time to time how to think about protecting your brand through the use of domains.

Candidate #2: Hillary Clinton

#1 Organic Result – Official website with great site links www.hillaryclinton.com

#2 Organic Result- official campaign site

#3 Organic Result- official Senate site

 

Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:

SERP Results – 14.3 mm

PR – 6

Age of Website – 12/1998 (Formerly was showing 2001)

Using Google AdWords? – Yes, but not when I searched during this post! That’s a problem.

StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Politics”

Search Marketing Grade: B+

Site links are still appearing strong below Hillary’s official site in the #1 Google spot, so this is a great thing for her campaign. News results are coming in #4 on Google and it’s probably better that the official site is outranking news results on Google, this way there is a bit more control over the message of the candidate. The description of the site uses the words “Exploratory Committee” and perhaps there is a way that they team can use that ever so coveted description in a better way? The fact that this site is still ranking #1 on the name search is great. As of this time of this post there are no Google page 1 paid ranking showing here in NY and this is not a great thing for Senator Clinton. So a positive and a negative on the search marketing effort cancel each other out and Clinton’s grade remains the same as the first posting.

It would be interesting to see if Senator Clinton could get a link from her senate site – perhaps on her bio to say that she’s a “Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States in 2008” and link perhaps her Bio Page on the Senate site over to her official campaign homepage. This may not be possible, but it is worth a try and may continue to yield consistent positive promotion of both sites.

Candidate #3: Mitt Romney

#1 Organic Result – Official campaign website www.mittromney.com

#2 Organic Result – Official campaign site interior link; Mitt’s biography.

#3 Organic Result – Wikipedia page

SERP Results – 2.37 mm

Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:

PR – 6

Age of Website – 2002

Using Google AdWords? – Yes, more aggressively in this round.

Official Site AdWords Top Result Copy:

Romney for America
MittRomney.com Bold Leadership, American Values. True Strength for America’s Future.

StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Politics”

Search Marketing Grade: B+

Mitt gets upgraded in this round from B to B+ as he’s being more aggressive with AdWords, and he now his official campaign website holds the top 2 spots on Google. His bio page continues to come up in the #2 spot on Google search which is extremely important for people who are just learning about the candidate.

Candidate #4: Barack Obama

#1 Organic Result – Official campaign website www.barackobama.com

#2 OrganicResult – Official campaign site interior link

#3 Organic Result – Wikipedia page

SERP Results – 2.82 mm

Stats on Candidate’s Official Website:

PR – 7

Age of Website – is now showing 4/2004 and was showing 3/2002

Official Site Using Google AdWords? – Yes

Official Site AdWords Copy?

Get to Know Barack Obama
BarackObama.com Learn more about Senator Obama at campaign events: Register Online

StubleUpon reviews is showing the Tag: “Liberal Politics”

Search Marketing Grade: A-

Obama has maintained the very compelling title: Welcome to Obama for America. Continued access to site links most importantly the www.my.barackobama.com link is there prompting users to “Get Involved” The campaign continues to take advantage of AdWords, but interestingly enough, they’ve not tweaked this copy at all since Round #1 in June. Why have they not experimented with this copy? Do they have optimal click-through rates and conversions to sign-ups based on this ad copy?

One area that they really have improved is they now hold the #2 spot with the official site over the Wikipedia result. Same as Romney, it’s the bio page. Google may have tweaked the results pages to show more relevant campaign information, but I trust also that there is work going on to promote the bios and that’s very smart on the search manager’s part. So, this campaign is still performing quite well and while it does not deserve a huge upgrade, it can certainly remain right were it is.

Round #2 sees that Obama is still the leader with an A- Grade in this Presidential Candidate Name-Search Face-off.

• Obama remains at A-
• Hillary Clinton remains at B+
• Mitt Romney is upgraded to B+
• Rudy Giuliani is upgraded to B

 

Some may ask: well, why is the top grade only an A-. I say, we’re not on a curve folks; this is the President we’re talking about. No A’s or A+’s handed out until we’re filling the first page with positive and official results.

Also interesting in this is how quickly the size of Google’s SERP page index is growing although I haven’t spent the time to check the percentage of page growth on the name search.

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