• by Rob Garner , February 13, 2008

In my last column, "Google Bombing and SEM is Evolving into 'Search Engine Activism,'" I reviewed examples of search campaigns with a non-commercial intent, particularly those promoting either a consumer, political or social cause.  These examples illustrated a variety of search tactics, and more often than not, they defied simple labeling as "Google bombing," "SEO," "SEM" or "search engine advertising."  In order to shed additional light on the thinking behind search activism campaigns, noted bloggers and online activists, Ethan Zuckerman and Chris Bowers shared their perspectives on the value and impact of search to their own causes and initiatives.

One quick note:  Political content ahead.  Requests to comment for this column were based on innovative uses of various search tactics and strategies alone, so please don't ask for equal time (unless it involves an amazing search strategy). 

Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voices

Zuckerman, a research fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, has blogged extensively about his creative uses of search engines for various causes.  As both an activist and an academic, he sees great value in search engines as communications tools, source of economic indicators, and a measurement of blogging success.  

"As an activist, I recognize that search engines are often the first place people seek information on novel topics," he notes. " I measure the success of my blogging by how well the information I publish is ranked on major search engines. When I advise other activists, I urge them to try to build content that will be well-ranked around very specific search terms.  It's difficult to claim the keyword 'Egypt' for a campaign to free a blogger, as friends did around a campaign to free Alaa Abdel Fatteh.  But associating that term with 'egypt human rights' would have been a much more achievable goal.

"As an academic, I see search engines as great proxies for economic information. The marketplace for search placement isn't completely transparent, but it's possible to discover a great deal about what people are willing to pay to reach certain audiences.  In other words, bidding for search key words tells you very quickly that people will spend a great deal of money to reach readers searching for information on  mesothelioma, for instance, and much less money on other diseases.  I'm interested in this information in the context of international news: What topics are most closely associated with what countries?  How much is the market interested in reaching people from different nations, or people interested in these different nations?"

While Zuckerman is skeptical of link bombing and the use of other search engine optimization tactics, he does find blogging to be an effective tool for ranking in natural search, especially for more specific terms and phrases.

"As a blogger, I tend to feel like I get pretty good results from major search engines by writing content-rich posts and having them get link traffic from other bloggers -- I tend to advise my activist friends to do the same.  It's worth keeping in mind that we're less interested in placement on very high volume keywords; generally, we're trying to make sure we're well-indexed on important, but not hugely well-known, topics in international news.

"I'm [also] a big fan of paid search in specific cases.  When a Web site gets blocked due to internet censorship, purchasing ads that allow you to complain about the block and direct users to a new site is a great idea, advocated by internet censorship expert Nart Villeneuve.  I think that purchasing keywords can be an excellent strategy for Net-based fundraising for charities."

Chris Bowers, Open Left

Open Left/Blogpac's Chris Bowers has also demonstrated innovative uses of search engines to promote his initiatives, including a January 2007 John McCain link bomb that yielded over 21,000 back links to a CBS news story, and a paid search campaign targeting a special election in Ohio last December for competitive research.

Bowers finds that even after Google launched its link bomb diffusion algorithm, Google bombs are still working.  "Google bombs are still effective, especially when facing a campaign that does not protect against them," he notes, although he says he doesn't like to characterize what he does as "Google bombing."

He also sees engines as a major avenue for online information research.  "Search engines are a major source through which people find out information on politicians and elections. They are also one of the few mediums in which grassroots campaigns can afford to compete with moneyed interests.  As such, they are essential to online grassroots campaigns."

Even though he uses both paid and natural search, Bowers echoes the findings of many commercial marketers when it comes to the most effective placement. "In my experience, the most effective tactics are SEO campaigns that result in a top 10 result on Google," he says.

Zuckerman and Bowers both illustrate how conventional search engine marketing tactics and strategies can be used to potentially change and confront the way we think about causes, philosophies, and ideas.  But considering their use of multiple tactics, including SEO, blogging, link development and paid search, it is apparent that there's conceptually much more to what they are doing than just "Google bombing,"  "advertising" or "marketing" alone.