I’m not the first political pundit to focus on the importance of social media in the political campaign mix. What’s also become increasingly important is search engine results.
A political candidate used to consider it a coup to be on the front page of the daily newspaper. It’s still a plus, but the modern version of the “front page” is Google. Getting high-ranking Google placement is like getting an article with a positive headline and color photo above-the-fold. (Don’t tell me if you’re a reader too young to have ever heard this term. Ye Gods).
Why? Because the first place people look for information on anything today is a search engine: Google. Yahoo. Bing. Most don’t read results beyond the first few pages. So political consultants work hard to populate the web with rich content about their candidate: a website, blog posts, video, photos, online (or so-called “social”) news releases, tweets, all loaded with content-rich search terms.
How are the major candidates for Mayor of San Diego faring in search results? Here’s the result of my research.
Methodology: First, I entered simply the first and last name of each candidate into Google, and tallied the search results, or “hits.” The numbers:
- Bonnie Dumanis: 91,700 hits
- Carl DeMaio: 174,000 hits
- Bob Filner: 342,000 hits
- Nathan Fletcher: 8.32 million hits
Shut the front door… Fletcher has eight million hits? Upon closer inspection, the majority of hits are for a good-looking professional surfer named Nathan Fletcher. So dude, let’s try this again. I did a second round of searches, but this time I added the single word “mayor” along with the name. The results:
- Nathan Fletcher: 102,000 (that’s more like it) (Bing: 9,090)
- Bob Filner: 60,500 (Bing: 28,100)
- Bonnie Dumanis: 58,600 (Bing: 14,900)
- Carl DeMaio: 44,900 (Bing: 13,600)
What should we make of this data? In the first round, Bonnie Dumanis’s number seemed extremely low given that she’s been the sitting district attorney and a major newsmaker in San Diego County since 2003. I expected her results would be similar to those for Bob Filner, due to his long tenure in Congress and therefore access to the media spotlight. Carl DeMaio’s numbers are admirable since he is an individual member among eight of a local city council, but this is a guy who knows his way around SEO (or at least knows how to hire people who do).
Perhaps this is close to falling into the category of tea leaves, but I solicit our smart Rostra readers for their take.
Not to leave out the lesser known candidates, Loch David Crane’s results on Google: 6,130 hits. Tobiah Pettus: 116. You’ve got to start somewhere.
You know I did. Gayle Falkenthal: 20,100. Booyah.
San Diego Rostra: 214,000. Sweet.