What if the Ron Paul Fans Became SEO Savvy?

[j3rk]

Found an interesting article about SEO and Politics. Thought I'd share.

SEOmoz | What if the Ron Paul Fans Became SEO Savvy?

It's late, and I should be wrapping up Q+A (or at least blogging on my promised topic of the Beginner's Guide) and getting some shut eye, but I simply couldn't resist sharing some thoughts about the web-based fervor for Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul. For those who don't know, Paul's supporters are possibly the most organized and galvanized web community in the modern political spectrum. Here's just a sample of their accomplishments:

• How a Fringe Politician Took Over the Web - from Wired
• Ron Paul Has Lots of Money - from the NY Observer
• The Ron Paul Effect - ABC News

I felt this quote, in particular, was impressively insightful:

So are the polls missing a Paul boomlet? Is the famously contrarian ob-gyn -- a libertarian nicknamed "Dr. No" because of his propensity to vote against anything he believes contradicts the Constitution's original intent -- poised to surge into contention in the GOP field?
Not likely. What's more likely, based on Web traffic over the past week, is that Paul supporters have mastered the art of "viral marketing," using Internet savvy and blog postings to create at least the perception of momentum for his long-shot presidential bid.

Paul's supporters certainly have a knack for driving traffic and dominating online polls, as well as flooding mainstream media with calls for more attention to the long-shot candidate. The problem is, the networks running those online polls are starting to get savvy. Here's Allen Wastler, Managing Editor for CNBC.com with An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Camp:

I haven't seen him pull those kind of numbers in any "legit" poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.
The next day, our email basked was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can't help but admire that.
But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest "show of hands" -- it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn't our intention and certainly doesn't serve our readers ... at least those who aren't already in the Ron Paul camp.

If Paul's supporters really were as savvy about viral marketing as they claim to be, they would have long ago discovered the power of anchor text, link bombing and taking over the search results. Imagine - if the thousands of bloggers, hundreds of forums and handful of social networking sites all took it upon themselves to boost Paul's visibility through search engine rankings, they could achieve an effect far greater than the dominance of online polls - they could truly start to influence the campaign by marketing information for their candidate.
Say the Paul supporters were savvy enough and dedicated enough; there's no limit to the pages on Paul's site they could get ranking for hot button issues and important, politically relevant queries - everything from Iraq War to Immigration to Health Insurance and 2008 Election could have pages on Paul ranking in the top 1-5 results. With control of the search results, it's likely he'd have considerably more brand recognition than his current 29% (note the Reddit thread - If you don't read Reddit, there's a 70% chance you don't even know who Ron Paul is). The best part? Those Ron Paul supporters are very frequently armchair generals of the web - their fanaticism extends only as far as their blogs' collective RSS readers, but through this strategy, they would, in fact, leverage that weakness into a strength. After all, if you had an army of bloggers at your bidding, wouldn't you distribute a search strategy to rule Google's blue link lists?
Naturally, this brings up a fascinating debate - if biased parties start taking advantage of the search algorithms' love of editorial blog links to wage information wars in the SERPs, how high might it escalate before the engines are forced to block or alter the results? If one search savvy political camp were to seize control of the results for a rival faction (picture if every search for George Bush in 2004 had returned a Kerry-based attack or vice versa), how long would it be before bloggers the web over joined the campaign? Perhaps in the future, we really will be voting over the web, but we'll do so with hyperlinks, not checkboxes. Maybe it's best to keep that Pandora's Box shut.
And, of course, may the best SEO'd candidate win...
p.s. Although this post does discuss political figures, SEOmoz IS NOT a forum for political discussion or the merits of particular beliefs or candidates. Myself, Scott, Rebecca & Jane are likely to quash comments that cross into the realm of political debate.

[decypher]

Excellent topic! These sort of PE structural concerns with technology is exactly the research I'm doing right now. The deterministic Utopians would probably see this as a win for techno-democracy. It's great that bloggers have this new public space to discuss politics but to see it used coercively and as a tool for power (through Search Engine Optimization) shows that democratized information can be just as Orwellian as utopic.


edit: thanks for the links btw.

[Big R]

ron paul ftw!

[j3rk]

Some Paul supporters had a booth outside the Vancouver Art Gallery on the weekend. I got a button. I rule.

[wishbone]

If I was a political analyst in the states I would be paying more attention to how paul's grassroots campaigners are working more than anything else. Will he get the republican nod? of course not...however like you pointed out, his organizers and supporters are the best at working with new media and reinventing the grass roots methods we saw disappear in the 60s for US politics when constant campaigning took off post FDR. Basically, if you took the Ron Paul model and stuck it on one of the top competitors, you're pretty much securing the vote of large demographics such as innovators and youth.

Now what I think of Ron Paul himself is a whole other issue....(I'm a fence sitter, in short - his constitutional-ism ideals are key, however his implementation methods are a little too drastic for me)

[decypher]

Do you support his view that Roe v. Wade should be overturned? I find that a bit odd.

Good comparison of the 60s with this new media model. It really is the flattening of the hierarchy in action. This is more reason to keep the internet neutral from the structural constraints of old media. If this happens then the same sort of marginalization occurs.

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by decypher

Do you support his view that Roe v. Wade should be overturned? I find that a bit odd.

Good comparison of the 60s with this new media model. It really is the flattening of the hierarchy in action. This is more reason to keep the internet neutral from the structural constraints of old media. If this happens then the same sort of marginalization occurs.

Well it was really back in the 50s and 60s, the old cats in washington didn't believe in TV advertising...and the ones that did it and it WELL, they moved into great standings.

I guess I don't follow Paul closely enough, I had no idea he wants Roe v Wade overturned.....what the hell is his basis on that? Wouldn't that be completely contradictory to libertarianism? If anything that case's judicial activism was putting it MORE in line with judicial restraint by upholding the freedom of an individual under the constitution....and if my little pocket copy is accurate, I really don't see what his constitutional basis would be for overturning one of the most important us supreme court cases (i would still lean that brown v education board or whatever it was probably even outshines roe and wadey though)

[decypher]

Originally Posted by wishbone

Well it was really back in the 50s and 60s, the old cats in washington didn't believe in TV advertising...and the ones that did it and it WELL, they moved into great standings.

I guess I don't follow Paul closely enough, I had no idea he wants Roe v Wade overturned.....what the hell is his basis on that? Wouldn't that be completely contradictory to libertarianism? If anything that case's judicial activism was putting it MORE in line with judicial restraint by upholding the freedom of an individual under the constitution....and if my little pocket copy is accurate, I really don't see what his constitutional basis would be for overturning one of the most important us supreme court cases (i would still lean that brown v education board or whatever it was probably even outshines roe and wadey though)

haha do you really have a pocket constitution? I thought only Dennis kucinich did that lol. I got that info from Ron's wiki profile and i thought it was odd because it stuck out like a sore thumb.

I did just find this. Basically he believes it's a morality question and "the notion that an all-powerful, centralized state should provide monolithic solutions to the ethical dilemmas of our times is not only misguided, but also contrary to our Constitution." So he feels this power should be decentralized and delegated to the state-level.

With what you said about TV advertising also happened with the penny press. Papers were 6 cents but advertising allowed companies to sell at 1cent. This is where papers went from subscription to commodity based. These advertising structures then started dividing the audience and exerting economic influence as we see today too.

[wishbone]

*insert joke about how big his pockets are from the colbert report here*

My copy is issued by the CATO institute, i picked it up at an IHS seminar I attended this past summer - Institute for Humane Studies is basically the student connection to the libertarian movement, hosting conferences, assisting placements and internships at thinktanks in DC, etc. etc. Great organization. I *was* working towards a minor in US politics/international politics but have since lost focus so I still enjoy following the news.

It's an interesting stance he takes (having read what you linked). He gives rights to the fetus, which is the key to his stance. I guess it boils down to whether or not you place the fetus as a person or not...since a woman should have the right to her own body, but a person also has a right to life.....

Thanks for teaching me something I didn't know, though. karma delivered.

[FlorpIncarnate]

Ron Paul wants to overturn Roe v Wade because he believes that the Libertarian non-aggression principle applies to an unborn child because it is a human being and is deserving of all applicable human rights. The problem of course is defining at what point in development a fetus stops being part of a woman's body and becomes a "human being". Keep in mind that Dr. Paul is a staunch Christian from a very Christian place in the world.

Personally I've come to accept that no political candidate is ever going to overlap 100% with my personal beliefs, and I've got to pick the lesser of multiple evils. Ron Paul definitely fits that mold for me.

[wishbone]

well florp did a fine job of reciting what i already wrote.

[decypher]

move over Ron; Colbert '08