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It won't be the first time that if I want to find out anything on Tory policy - I should first look at the Labour party's information.

I'll be clicking on these particular links from the hundred or so terminals I have access, I'll paas the word around too.

At least it's only a militant tendency. It could be worse: it could be the real thing.

Interesting approach. You would expect the Conservatives to be in favour of the (quasi) market led approach adopted by standard search results on google - i.e. the more links there are to a site, and the more current the content, the higher up the rankings it appears. The Conservatives seem to have decided to bypass this market-driven approach by throwing money at it and thereby interfering in the market. I trust this won't be translated into their approach to economic policy.

And it looks like they've also gamed Nick Clegg. The first sponsored link on a Clegg search gives the Tory "Fed Up With Labour?" link,

Interesting, I wonder if this conflicts with AdWords terms of use in any way.

If you type in Google you don't get sponsored ads from Bing, Yahoo or Ask - yet I am sure they have tried!

the phrase "militant tendency" won't be the only thing they dig up from the 80's, bank regulations will soon be known as "red tape" and shown as a bad thing. Dave will look after his own!

Brands bidding on competitors is nothing new since Google lifted the ban on bidding on trademarked keywords, so I am not sure why this is news worthy, we are just giving these pathetic little battles more PR!

Well I pay as much attention to the sponsored links as I do the Conervative party in general.

By that I mean none.

I'd have a lot more time for them (read: a few minutes) if they even so much as turned up at my door to discuss their policies (etc).

Mind you, they'd have to actually HAVE some policies for that to happen!

It seems to be common practice for companies to bid on their rivals' names (even trademarked ones) in order to appear in their searches. I understand this is legal. I'm surprised it has taken UK politicians so long to get around to it.

A lot of people tend to ignore sponsored links. It's the organic results which are the most important - the ones that appear based on the actual content of a web page. If a term is repeated often enough (although not so many times that it will be counted as spam) then it will improve the ranking. Education, education, education may well have been a clever ploy to improve seacrh rankings...

Over clicking won't make use all the Tory funds, I think AdWords has an option to allow only the first x number of clicks to be charged to the account! After that the advert can be clicked 1,000's of times but the owner of the advert won't be charged. But good fun who ever thought of that one.

Rory,
Anxiously waiting for your comment on the German government warning against using Firefox:

The Tories have also hijacked Obama's "change" theme.

Silly really... if they get in, that's all we'll have left in our pockets.

I think it is quite ironic that after spending so much money buying 'Gordon Brown' the article the Tories chose to attach to the link displays such an extraordinary ignorance regarding trade unions that it it has, in fact, cemented my decision NOT to vote for them.

any body can play the web search game ....I typed
"clear policy by the conservative party"
and in the interests of fairness also typed
"clear policy by the labour party"
In both cases I was told Your search - "clear policy by the conservative/labour party " - did not match any documents.


hmmmm fancy neither party having any clear policies.



and yes I know it was because I included quotation marks. It was to illustrate the point that some people believe everything that the internet says is right!

If I'm not inclined to believe a single word ANY politician says on TV, why would I be inclined to believe anything they say online, or in print?
To me it just says they've had more time to think and write about fabricating the statements or bending the statistics. Or indeed just outright lying.
On the next general election, I will vote by not voting - its not inaction due to lethargy or not caring, but a statement of my distinct lack of confidence in the current government and shadow government.

It all seems a bit sad and pathetic really, smacks of desperation. I suppose if they don't have any policies, ones they dare share with the electorate anyway what choice do they have but to resort to these deceptive and underhand tactics.
It looks like under stress the Conservatives have reverted to type

google have a fix for multi votes/clicks haha wonder what a vote bot could do on a network like tor.?

Do you read 'Wired Magazine' by chance? There is very similar article on the Tory online election strategy in this month's magazine.

I remember recently an article pointing out that you were three times more likely to be defrauded on branded goods in e-commerce if you clicked on a sponsored link as opposed to go to an ordinary link.
Now it seems to be true about e-politics too.

Hey don't try and make out that the Tories know what they are doing when it comes to technology. I'm surprised none of the mainstream media have spotted the total failure of their 'Cash Gordon' site - not only bought from the US but hacked to bits (and NOT by Labour activists either as mis-reported in the Teelegraph).

None of the major political parties in the UK understand nor can use technology effectively - they might hire the odd agency who do, but they have a tiger by the tail.

Hoping for a Tory Blocker to go along with my Ad Blocker

Thank God for AdBlock

Pretty standard practice for a search marketing campaign. You should rank close to number 1 on your core keywords in organic search anyway, so you use the paid-search links to get traffic from keywords that you don't have a huge amount of content devoted to.

Now if the conservatives could get good organic listings for "Gordon Brown" I'd be really impressed!

I know there is the update to the article that attempts to clarify but if it is true that Tories have bought the Adwords "haiti earthquake" and "chile earthquake" to promote Tory policy then I'm sorry but that is absolutely disgusting. How low can you sink. It is sick.

It reminds me of the "good day to bury bad news" comment when referring to 9/11.

The Tories should apologise and break any links they have with this company immediatly.

Labour party paid for google adwords link day of Conservative party Spring Conference which lead to labour website....seems like Conservatives now learning to play Labour game. All fair in love and war and politics..

The real winner of this is Google, that gets a donation from the Conservative Party for every click through. In fact if you want to donate to Google, you can click the link yourself.

It is sad that both Labour and the Conservatives have so failed the British economy that they will both be donating large sums of money to an American company.

A better government could have helped to create a more British web. If City investors were not so hopeless they could have created internet based jobs rather than trying to destroy the economy.

The problem is that many of the policies that have failed Labour are failed Conservative policies.

I've a suggestion rather than Labour and the Tories throwing all their money away in advertising they both invest it in Britain and whoever does best I'll vote for.

Michael Gove picture and the article on this site remind me of Naive little William Hague at that Conservative party conference with Margaret Thatcher. This 80s style anti union rhetoric from Gove and Cameron seems a little dated for today's more knowledgeable post cold war audiences. The cold war is over. Thatcher/Reagan didn't win it though, the USSR lost it.

That woman in the video was never a socialist. You can tell by the way her nose is up in the air as well as the Conservative PR politic speak she comes out with as the reason for abandoning her socialist roots(LOL!).

Make sure you clear Conservative.com from your cookies after you've laughed at the website. Then maybe you can laugh at it again later.

Before Maggie broke the unions there were controlled by Russia. Scargill took money from the Russians. Who controls the unions now certainly not the spokes people we see on TV, they have niether the brains nor the money to pay the strikers.

I was surprised to see the story about the Tories advertising on the internet. Some months ago I posted a spoof article based on the Monster Raving Loony Party and the Greens forming a government after the 2010 General Election (.
On checking, I find Dsvid Cameron advertising there, along with a number of "Labour have failed" advertisements.

"If you type in Google you don't get sponsored ads from Bing, Yahoo or Ask - yet I am sure they have tried!"

Why would you Google Google?!

This advert keeps changing from Michael and Tina "Never voted Tory before but..". To some appalling anti union anti working class propaganda video about string vest wearing unions. This is class predjudice of the worst kind. He can't actually mean the other type of 'Vested interest', He's the leader of the Conservative party.

Thanks Rory. Interesting post and particularly pertinent in light of recent events. The forthcoming election does appear to be taking a decidedly 鈥榙igital鈥� angle, perhaps as a result of what unfolded during the Obama campaign in the States.

The main political parties do seem to be working out their online strategies as they go, experimenting with different tactics but this does provide the ideal terrain for slip-ups. We鈥檝e seen this with the negative response to the Labour iPhone app launch ( and the Conservative 鈥淐ash Gordon鈥� campaign ( and .

In terms of keyword bidding, Tamar鈥檚 Political Search Index points to party tactics with the data measured over a long period showing Conservatives bidding heavily on Health issues (鈥淣HS鈥�, 鈥渕edical鈥�, 鈥渄octors鈥�), Labour bidding strongly on the words 鈥淐onservatives鈥�, 鈥淭ax for businesses鈥� and 鈥淕overnment spending鈥�. At the time of the research, the Lib Dems were not bidding. While the keyword bidding tactics will change, the research does indicate the early focuses for the parties.

Perhaps a more pragmatic and ultimately cost effective approach would be for the major parties to target the natural search listings, where a rounded campaign can produce better results and give more exposure to the section of Google that receives by far the most click throughs for the majority of searches.

@32. Don't type Google into Google - you'll break the internet.

Great line from the excellent TV series, "The IT Crowd".

I get really annoyed by playground politics... My car's faster than your car and my dad is bigger than yours...

That's all this is. Ooooh the big bad Gordon Brown lets attack him. Labour will then counter with something equally pointless and then the Lib-Dems will mumble about something else. They should all grow up.

Digital media should be a place for publishing policies that will make a difference. Instead they are all spending their cash on making fun of each other. Sad, sad, sad.

Everyone here needs to stand up against the Digital Bill which will end up getting enforced. Rich corporations will have even more control. Well done to the Tory party for lining a corporations pockets! Don't worry though Labour will follow suit shortly.

Maybe if all the parties stopped being a bunch of greedy morons the country would be a better place. The problem with this country is politics has become a career and it should never be.

Don't even start me on the televised debates nonsense.

I have personal experience of all parties and trust me none of them, and I do mean none of them, care about you.

It's hardly noteworthy is it. Teally peeps - get a life!
Anyway, aren't the Tories a bit behind the times? Unite seem to have bought Gordon years ago.
Mind you, I'm surprised that Labour don't have a hysterical link blaming it all on Madge T up and running by now...Slimey, I mean, Mandy loosing his touch?

I can't imagine why Rory presumed that because "haiti earthquake" linked to a David Cameron video, that Conservative HQ would be involved.

I would have been looking to the other parties, or just to some disgruntled technerd, for the source of the juxtaposition.

And these are the self-same politicians who want state funding for politician parties!!!!!

NOT ONE PENNY of taxpayers' funds should go anywhere such childish pranksters.

If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny to see such inadequate personalities huffing and puffing in the belief that being politicians means they have real value or importance.

Just logged in for my daily clicks and the sponsored link has disappeared!

At least the sponsored links are easily identifiable.
For the past couple of general elections Labour have been astro-turfing (fake grassroots) where party members send letters into the local press (and now on online blogs) pretending to be members of the public claiming how things are fantastic in the local area thanks to Labour. There have been cases of identical letters being published in local papers with just the senders name being different.

Apparently they were shown how to do this because is was a Republican ploy started when George W Bush first got elected to the Presidency.

David Cameron talks...and talks...and talks..and says absolutely nothing because he doesn't want us to know what we're in for,should he win.

It's quite possible David Cameron could continue his vacuous speeches on 'TIME FOR A CHANGE','WE'RE IN IT TOGETHER' or 'POWER TO THE PEOPLE' right up to election day when he could be given the keys to number ten, then we'll discover his plans, and if the few polices we know about are an indication, it will to form a government with a HARD RIGHT WING AGENDA.

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