Benyamin Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak — SEO and SMO in the Israeli Elections
Monday, February 2nd, 2009Barak Obama did an amazing job of leveraging the Internet for fundraising and campaigning. Have the Israeli’s taken note?
Comparing the Google Search engine results for the three candidates it is easy to see that one of the candidates is savvier than the others. We are using Google in our analysis since it is the most popular search engine in Israel. We used the search term which I believe (and Google also believes) most searchers use – full name for Livni and Barak and last name for Netanyahu. This is what Google also thinks as you can see in the screen shot below.
By the way, Google shows that Netanyahu searches are much more popular than the other candidates. Since there are many undecided voters this could be an indication that Netanyahu will win most of the undecideds. However, take this with a grain of salt since Google search volume stats are not that accurate. For more information on predicting outcomes based on web analytics, I recommend you read the book “Click” by Bill Tancer.
Google keyword search results for Livni, Netayahu & Barak
Google trends (not always accurate) also shows that Netanyahu is leading in searches and he is even leading in news coverage (lower graph). This is unusual since he is in the opposition and Barak and Livni are in the government where they can more easily make news. If the graph is correct people in Israel are becoming very interested in Netanyahu.
Google Trends Chart: Netanyahu is blue, Livni is orange and Barak is red. Netanyahu is pulling ahead on Google
