John McCain SEO @ OpenLeft
Googlebomb John McCain
by: Chris Bowers
It is time to start bomb bomb bomb, bomb bombing again. No, not Iran, but John McCain’s Google ranking.
In looking for a search engine optimization against McCain, the first step is to choose good websites to optimize. Here some criteria for good websites:
- The website should already be in the Google top 100, for searches on John McCain, making it easier to increase the ranking over time.
- The website should have the word “McCain” in the title of the search result making it easier to optimize.
- The website should be from a well-known news source, making is less obviously a partisan attack.
- The website should have a long life span, and not in danger of being removed before the general election.
- The website should be a negative news story on McCain, not an opinion piece.
With those criteria in mind, here are six best possible options I see for a McCain Googlebomb search engine optimization campaign:
- John McCain. You Tube showing John McCain as a flip-flopper. Current Google rank:12. Is not a news site.
- John McCain. Anti-McCain attack site featuring videos and McCain’s connection to lobbyists. Current Google rank: 22. Is obviously an attack site rather than a news source.
- John McCain. The original McCain Googlebomb tying McCain to Bush on Iraq. Current Google rank: 26. CBS News is the source. Title comes off as garbled in the Google search. Also, McCain is going to make this connection the basis of his campaign, so it might not be necessary.
- John McCain: Crooks and Liars tag for John McCain. Current Google rank: 30. Will be constantly updated. It is a blog, but one with a great title when it comes to attacking a Republican nominee.
- John McCain: Mother Jones article about McCain wanting to keep troops in Iraq for 100 years. Current Google rank: 76. Negatives: long and somewhat garbled title.
Let me know what you think of these options. Also, if you have any more candidate websites, especially some of the juicy lobbyist stuff of late, please list them in the comments.
Over the next couple of days, we can whittle down the choices, put it to a vote, and start the campaign in earnest.
John McCain SEO @ Firedoglake
What do you do for an encore once your Googlebomb project causes Michelle Malkin to unleash her legion of shrieking howler monkeys on you? Well if you’re Chris Bowers, you set your sights on John McCain.
Bsuh's Third Term
According to Pew, the number one way voters use the internet is to search for candidate information. Ergo, it makes sense to try and embed hyperlinks of telling McCain articles across the internet in order to raise their Google ranking. So here we go:
1–McCain: US economic woes ‘psychological’
2–McCain housing policy shaped by lobbyist
3–Bush, McCain plug Social Security
4–McCain blasts Obama’s and Clinton’s attacks on NAFTA
5–McCain in NH: Would Be “Fine” To Keep Troops in Iraq for “A Hundred Years”
6–McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion
7–Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition
8–McCain says overturn the law that legalized abortion
9–McCain Defends Bush’s Iraq Strategy
There you have it. You can blogroll them, put them in your sig, add them in comments, or link one every time you use McCain’s name. Or his “huggy bear” image.
After the Malkin project, Bowers got lots of death threats. He now estimates that this project could cost McCain 1% of the vote, so if you see a fleet of V-22s circling Open Left, you’ll know his payload hit the mark.
McCain Aide Scheunemann Linked To Bush Library ‘Cash For Access’ Scandal
Recap from last week’s breaking story from ThinkProress:
Earlier this month, the Sunday Times caught longtime Bush associate Stephen Payne on tape offering access to top Bush administration officials in exchange for “six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.” Payne, who is now being investigated by the Homeland Security Department and the House Oversight Committee, made the offer to Kazakh politician Yerzhan Dosmukhamedov, who is also known as Eric Dos.
Looks like this will be your usual network of shell corporations:
But the Times reports today that Payne may be lying about his business dealings and that the money may have been funneled through a sister company to Payne’s lobbying firm:
The Sunday Times, however, has discovered the existence of a channel through which funds from the Kazakh government could have been readily transferred.
A sister company to WSP, Worldwide Strategic Energy (WSE), of which Payne is also president, has a subsidiary, Caspian Alliance, which is the sole US representative for KMG.
The Times reports that a top adviser to Sen. John McCain, lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, has direct ties to the company that is alleged to have funneled the funds:
In a further link, Randy Scheunemann, chief foreign policy and national security adviser to John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, was listed in the WSE brochure as part of its executive team. Scheunemann and Associates, his lobbying firm, is reported as having represented the Caspian Alliance in 2005.
At the undercover meeting last week, Payne said Scheunemann had been “working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years”. When confronted over the link to KMG, Payne declined to comment.
John McCain’s Other YouTube Problem | DailyKos
A month ago today, I wrote about John McCain’s YouTube problem. New media tools allow ordinary Americans to fact-check his factless speeches and to compare the “new” McCain to the “old” McCain”:
McCain’s Achilles’ heel has always been his policy oscillations. His limber “principles” allow him to sweep from one side of an issue to another; they are generally lauded as badges of maverickness in the press and recognized by the reality-based community largely as panderiffic moments of Washington as usual. And until now, because the traditional media has refused to properly cover these flip-flops and distortions, McCain has been able to get away with saying one thing and doing another, or voting one way and soon thereafter voting another. But how will the real McCain — whiplash policy McCain — play out in 2008, where video and blogs will be able to juxtapose his stances and statements in such a manner that shatters the myth of McCain as an “honest broker”?
If there were any question, yesterday’s speech in New Orleans makes clear that McCain has another YouTube problem. In the digital era, Americans turn to the internet to receive information about their candidates. It’s not enough to have a nice little soundbite quoted in the press. No, the modern voter has the ability to seek out context and primary sources.
John McCain’s YouTube Problem | DailyKos
DailyKos on John McCain’s YouTube problem:
John McCain has a YouTube problem.
The Republican candidate who is hailed by the press as a “maverick” has benefited greatly from the media’s adoration (Chris Matthews once famously said “The press loves McCain. We’re his base, I think.”). Wooed with BBQs and bus trips, members of the press have largely given “St. McCain” a free ride (as an aside: see SusanG’s excellent book review of “Free Ride” here).
