Like all other years AG (After Google) in 2008 the incoming link to your site will be king, perhaps for the last time if the Google algorithm changes. From my experience optimizing your site’s “onpage” factors and then getting targeted links is still the best way to boost your performance in the search engines.
The Google point of view is that the number of relevant incoming links is a proxy for how popular or relevant your site is. With that in mind I thought it might be interesting to test this theory on the presidential candidates’ performances in the Iowa Caucuses tomorrow. If Google’s algorithm is right then shouldn’t the winning candidates have the most incoming links to their websites?
I used both Google’s and Yahoo’s link: command to find how many links these search engines claimed each candidate site had. These numbers are likely extremely inaccurate so this poll has a margin of error of +-100%.
So both engines point to Obama as the man in ’08 but if I were any of these other candidates I would get my linkbuilding strategy in place asap. If you are one of these candidate’s campaign managers I know a great non-partisan linkbuilder.
Democrats (According to Google)
1. Barack Obama G 91,300
2. John Edwards G 77,800
3. Hillary Clinton G 24,900
4. Dennis Kucinich G 14,500
5. Chris Dodd G 10,900
6. Bill Richardson G 9,650
7. Mike Gravel G 8,450
Republicans (According to Google)
1. Ron Paul G 268,000
2. Mike Huckabee G 73,500
3. Rudy Giuliani G 23,100
4. Fred Thompson G 18,700
5. Mitt Romney G 14,400
6. John McCain G 14,200
7. Duncan Hunter G 7,290
Democrats (According to Yahoo Site Explorer)
1. Barack Obama Y 827,320
2. Hillary Clinton Y 507,986
3. John Edwards Y 297,868
4. Bill Richardson Y 36,372
5. Chris Dodd Y 21,929
6. Mike Gravel Y 3,971
8. Dennis Kucinich Y 2,349
Republicans (According to Yahoo Site Explorer)
1. Ron Paul Y 124,173
2. Fred Thompson Y 36,334
3. Mike Huckabee Y 25,751
4. Mitt Romney Y 20,460
5. Duncan Hunter Y 9,412
6. John McCain Y 7,435
7. Rudy Giuliani Y 5,014
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6 Response Comments
This is a very interesting way to look at the Presidential race. Not surprised at the results though.
This could be a new career move for you should the results match what you have here. You may be on to something.
In theory it should work for everything right – stock market picks, prom queen, etc.
Andrew really enjoyed this post was a unique and fresh look at both politics and the google algorithm.
funny that Ron Paul only exists on the Web.
Reading through all your posts and ran across this one. Looks like your strategy is 1 for 1.