US Government Uses AdWords
May 6, 2008
By the time you read this, the estimable Financial Times will have renamed the file, moved it to a digital dungeon, and besiege you with advertisements. The headline that stopped me in my web-footed tracks is, “US Advertises on Google to Snare Surfers”. Click here for what I hope is the original FT link.
The idea is that traffic to a US government site–America.gov–needs to be goosed (no pun intended, dear logo). Do you think the government might use content? Do you think the US government might use backlinks from high-traffic Web sites? Do you think the government might use nifty Web 2.0 features? Keep in mind that this site’s tag line is, “Telling America’s story”.
The answer is, “No.” The US government bids for such zippy terms as terrorism. The person who clicks on an advertisement and gains an insight into the American government’s psyche.
The FT story said:
In recent months the US administration has quietly been running the advertisements for its America.gov site, which is intended to give foreign audiences the Washington take on US foreign policy, culture and society.
I am not doing any government work at this time. I hope someday to meet the consultant who came up with this idea. I will try to get this wizard to take me to lunch. I have a hunch this consultant made some money on this project.
Stephen Arnold, May 6, 2008
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One Response to “US Government Uses AdWords”
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Hi Steve,
The full article is here