Google ads battleground between The Sun and Labour
by Martin Belam, 30 September 2009
It looks like Google ads are going to play a significant role in the upcoming election campaign if this morning is anything to go by. The Sun has been buying up adverts announcing that they have switched their support to the Conservatives, and the Labour Party a Labour Party supporter have been buying up counter adverts for the same keywords.
Update: According to this article on the Telegraph website, the Labour Party are denying they had anything to do with the ad, and a comment left below claims it was the action of one Labour-leaning blogger.
+1 to Labour for responding quickly. -10 for buying an ad that simply links to their homepage, rather than a specific landing page which details why the Sun is "wrong on Labour".
I noticed that the third listing after the two Labour websites in the organic results is The Sun and their editorial.
That could be bit of a worry for Labour if that page was googlebombed to the top of the results.
ridiculously naive of the labour party to use their main brand term for that.
the equivalent of a chef standing in the doorway of their restaurant shouting about a bad review in the local press.
doubly naive to point an ad like that straight through to their homepage, rather than a landing page telling people why they think the sun is wrong.
Brilliant spot.
Has anyone checked if the Labour Party actually paid for this Google adword? Anyone can buy one, and anyone can put any website address.
Either there budget has gone or they have pulled the ad now...
Either way it's not showing any more...
I think many people would find it offensive if Labour were found to be perverting the memory of the victims of the Hilsborough disaster for short-term political gain.
I hope this advert wasn't actually purchased by the party.
@Enzo: The Sun's advert is still showing... it would appear Murdoch has deeper pockets than the Labour Party :)
The ad seems to be UK only? Can't see it over here (Scandinavia). Anyway, wonder what's next. Adwords as a political battleground? Whew.
It wasn't a Labour Party official who paid for the advert.
It was in-fact a Labour-leaning blogger who thought twice after seeing the reaction on Twitter, and pulled it after an hour or so.
She's incredibly embarrassed. She thought it was making a good point, but then realised how insensitive it was.
I'm happy for the blog owner to email me for confirmation.
Welcome to new election politics. Google is an advertising media. I don't see why people take offense to adwords attack ads anymore then tv attack ads. Its just politics.
Sam, given the location of the URL you are trying to pimp for SEO purposes, I'd guess you didn't pick up on the reference to Hillsborough on one of the ads. Using the deaths of people at a sporting event twenty years ago to make your political point is a pretty low blow, especially as it initially appeared to be coming from the party in power over here.
This is pretty funny. Labour using adwords. What next? The conservatives using their brains (lol, joke).
hmm very interesting, labour must have finally got someone in teach them about technology - labour using Adwords? What ever next. I think they need to embrace social media more, if they were more transparent they would gain more respect.
I like the idea of the government using AdWords to help people find useful government information instead of searching endlessly for it on Google for it, but this time I think they should have avoided it
Man, you can totally feel it, how politicians are all now starting to use the net and go online for gaining power. It all started out 2009 with Obama and his online campaign and collaboration with facebook. Since that point many followed. Can see it in Germany too.