Conveniently the same top 3 candidates in both parties are both considered the top 3 candidates, so I’m going to stick with the same in my new analysis (Democrats: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards.

Republicans: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain). In my previous post I looked at a few points that haven’t changed, like age of domain and the choice of domain URL, so refer to that post for that analysis.

This analysis looks at basic SEO metrics and compares data from January 2008 to March 2007. A few new measurements are given following these, including PPC branding and a new metric called IndexRank. And for fun we’ll come up with the winners from both parties in terms of their effectiveness in SEO.

Backlinks

Backlinks, or inbound links, are how many sites link to your site.

These figures are from Yahoo.

Barack Obama leads in backlinks by about 150,000 backlinks. John Edwards started with having almost 6 times less than Hillary and beats her by 80,000 backlinks.

In the Republican field, John McCain started off with very few (comparatively) backlinks and still ends with 100,000 less than Mitt Romney. Romney leads Rudy by about 50,000 links.

Technorati Links

This is used as a measure of popularity in the blogosphere world. The more the better.

Obama again leads on Technorati links and John Edwards and Clinton keep their same position, with Hillary having the most percentage increase.
Mitt Romney started well ahead of both Rudy and John (2.5 X more and 5 X more respectively) and still leads in Technorati links. Rudy surpasses John McCain with a larger increase in links.

Alexa Rank

I know Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s an interesting comparison. The lower the number, “the better”. The number represents the rank of the website out of the top websites on the Internet in terms of traffic. The most visited site on the Internet is ranked 1. A zero (0) means either an error or not enough traffic to rank.

All of the Democratic candidates have seen a drop in their Alexa Rank since March 2007, with John Edwards taking the worst drop. Barack Obama leads with the best rank.

All of the Republican candidates see a better Alexa ranking, although anything was better than Rudy’s rank in March 2007. Mitt Romney leads with the best rank.

Page Strength

All candidates made significant strides, as would be expected. PageStrength is not a measurement of how good the pages are, but of how well-known, cited, visited, and linked to a site is.

John Edwards has the highest PageStrength while Barack jumped the most, moving from third to second.
John McCain made the most stride but also started as the lowest in PageStrength. Both McCain and Romney end up with the same PageStrength, both beating out Hillary’s PageStrength.

Indexed Pages

Google and Yahoo both give a different number of pages in their index, so I’ll show both, Google/Yahoo.

These numbers are all over the place, it’s hard to say who reports more accurately (Google vs. Yahoo). However, there’s no doubt that Obama has created tons of content (probably a lot of user-generated content).

PPC Branding

I’m not going to recap the PPC from March 2007 because the keywords I looked at were only used by 2 of the candidates. This time I chose to look at the use of PPC for their own name, which I feel is a reflection of their PPC campaign. If you’re not running ads for your brand (your name) you’re probably not running much of a PPC campaign.

Barack Obama – Ads by Obama and Rudy
Hillary Clinton – Ad by Rudy
John Edwards – Ad by Rudy
Rudy Giuliani – Ad by Rudy
Mitt Romney – Ads by Rudy and Mike Huckabee
John McCain – Ads by McCain and Rudy

Rudy clearly comes out a winner, but keep in mind this is only a snapshot. If you follow these links at different times of day and different geographical locations you may see very different results. These are coming from the West Coast.

IndexRank – a measurement of content freshness

This metric is from 0-10 where 10 is the highest. The higher the number the better the content growth, freshness, and the more indexed the site is by Google.

Hillary Clinton – 8
Barack Obama – 8
John Edwards – 5
Mitt Romney – 9
John McCain – 8
Rudy Giuliani – 6

Mitt Romney wins out with a 9 above even the Democrats. Hillary and Obama are both at 8 and John Edwards lags way behind the whole group with a 5. Rudy lags behind the Republican candidates with a 6.

The Winners

Back in March 2007 there was no clear SEO winner in either party. After 10 months of campaigning, you can really see a lot of changes in all the candidates, some more than others.

In the Democratic party, Barack Obama clearly trumps both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the growth of their site and the pursuit in SEO.

In the Republican party, its not as clear but Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani both have made great strides, but I think Mitt Romney’s advantage in traffic, IndexRank, and Technorati links gives him an edge over Giuliani.

Comments

"I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality. Because once providers start to privilege some applications or web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose. The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way."

In fact, Obama is making technology a central part of his plans for Executive office, revealing yesterday his plan to use Internet technology to open up government and make it more transparent.

Probably won’t happen – that open government thing – but it’s a nice thought. Nevertheless, he’s made a clear promise to uphold Net Neutrality.

Which is more than we can say for Clinton. Though she’s supported Net Neutrality legislation in the past, she has yet to mention it on the campaign trail, even within her Internet agenda released last month.

And that has organizations like MoveOn.org and other traditionally Democrat supporters nervous. MoveOn sent out word today for members to contact the Clinton campaign for fear she is backing away from her previous stance.

You know, because she’s never been known to waffle before, right?

Oh, wait.

The news broke a little less than three weeks ago as supporters of the Edwards campaign heralded the move as brilliant strategy to reach out to an entirely new community of voters.

A certain devastatingly handsome journalist, however, made a bold prediction concerning the affair:

I’m laying 10:1 odds the Edwards headquarters will be attacked by flying genitalia within a month.

Any takers?

If you took that bet, I’m here to gleefully inform you that you’ve come out on the short end of the stick.

Last week, the unofficial headquarters for the Edwards campaign was trashed by what officials from the senator’s campaign described as “a group of republican Second Life users” in a profane fashion.

Those taking responsibility for the incident, however, claim otherwise. GamePolitics.com has the coverage of those taking the credit for the attack:

Guess what: we’re not Republicans. In fact, I’m one of the most hard-core liberals I know… We simply did it for the lulz… The fact you were so bent out of shape to make a blog post on the OFFICIAL JOHN EDWARDS BLOG about how some people placed a bunch of sh*ttingdicknipples on your lawn is mighty telling.

We had something much bigger planned, and the actions of a few in the organization sort of spoiled it… If this sort of hilarity is getting out after something rather routine, we can only dream of what would happen later.

I think I remember stating that launching the campaign in Second Life was a bad idea from the start.

I’m not one to say I told you so…

Actually, who am I kidding? I am one to say it; I told you so.

Gratification, thy name is Second Life.

Politics is no different. Three notable Democrats who want to stake a claim to the White House in 2008 have brands to build, with varying degrees of difficulty to overcome. Social media has been demonstrated as one way to attract an audience and reinforce the message a brand wants to communicate.

The candidates have taken different steps to try and do what Howard Dean did in 2004

As if the virtual world of Second Life weren’t full of enough debauchery, now it’s home to a whole new form of prostitution and depravity — a process that these days we formally refer to as campaigning for the U.S. presidency.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m as patriotic American as they come. I have the deepest respect for the rich tradition and legacy of freedom that has been laid down by our past presidents.

But somehow, It just seems wrong to me on so many levels to set up a campaign headquarters for such an important office a mere few blocks away from a place where someone is paying to have their avatar tied up and ball-gagged for kicks.

Unless you’re going for the S&M voters; in that case, Second Life is probably the place you want to be.

Nonetheless, a grass roots movement supporting John Edwards has set up shop in the virtual world that Linden Labs operates. Second Lifer Jose Rote (real name Jerimee Richir) manages the in-world campaign, and talked with Steve O’Hear about its purpose:

[T]hink of this as a scouting mission… it is unofficial in that the campaign is not spending money, and I am not paid, however the campaign is aware that we are organizing in Second Life, and cooperating as much as they can. I keep them updated on what I have learned, and they let me know things that will be helpful.

Rote also commented on some of the prevalent issues that Edwards will address in efforts to appeal to Second Life residents:

Net Neutrality is going to be at the forefront of Edwards’s SL campaign. Rote said, “Avatars don’t eat or sleep but they do lag.” If Net Neutrality laws flag, smaller companies like Linden Lab may be unable to pay the high fees associated with greater bandwidth and faster service, and users of SL will be the ones to pay the price. “While I can’t promise that Edwards could do away with lag, I can tell you that he would support Net Neutrality, and that would ensure that the problem wouldn’t worsen,” Rote added.

Yes, that’s dandy. I’m sure Second Life residents would love to stand around and chat about Net Neutrality and other pervading issues in the Web 2.0 landscape. Virtual worlds are a means of escapism for most and this type of radical commentary is such a departure from what people are used to in their First Life.

Oh wait, I’m sorry. My bad. It’s exactly the same. So why would people even want a presidential campaign headquarters in Second Life?

Am I the only one who sees this endeavor meeting a very ugly and humiliating demise? Am I the only one who grasps the limitless ends that people will go to in Second Life just to get a quick laugh or a cheap thrill?

Honestly, while I’m sure that supporters of the virtual campaign mean well, I believe that it’s all just going to wind up as a target for pranksters looking to cause grief and get a chuckle.

Don’t believe me? Talk to CNET about Second Life.

On that note, I’m laying 10:1 odds the Edwards headquarters will be attacked by flying genitalia within a month.

Any takers?

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