BP "Manipulating" Search Results

Some would call it "reputation management"

[Sierra_Dad]

According to the mainstream news, BP is manipulating internet search results.

[foxnews.com ]

The company is purchasing terms such as “oil spill,” “Deepwater Horizon” and “Gulf of Mexico” so that when a user types these words into the search engines, the results prominently feature a “sponsored link” to BP’s official page on its response to the spill.

Regardless of how one feels about BP, it's news to me that buying Adwords is manipulating search results.

From what I've learned, this seems like Reputation Management 101. After all, they are getting plenty of negative publicity for free, and they are paying per click to tell their own story. I don't think they are using taxpayer funds.

And I don't think most government officials would be in any position to complain because of this:

Political parties across the world, include the Conservative Party during this years general election, have bought key search terms to ensure their messages are at the top of search engine results.

[Acrill]

You can't really trust the mainstream media to get anything correct concerning internet techonology. They obviously don't understand how PPC ads work and how they is distinct from search results. Misinformation abounds.

Thanks for the article, its interesting.

[LucidSW]

From the article:
> Critics describe BP’s move as unethical.

I don't see how unethical that is. BP has the info people might be looking for. It's their oil spill after all. If it helps with damage control too, why not.

So it bumps down one position news and opinion sites. People can still read those.


> President Obama expressed unease at the amount of money the company was spending to counter the negative attention

What did he expect them to do?

If you go to bp.com, the whole top of the home page is about the spill with latest news, information and contact numbers.

[after_hours]

This is smart on BP's part. Clearly Fox News has no clue between the difference between paid/natural.

[londrum]

> President Obama expressed unease at the amount of money the company was spending to counter the negative attention

a lot of that negative attention has come from him. he's demonising BP and trying to criminalise their bosses.

[smallcompany]

a lot of that negative attention has come from him. he's demonising BP and trying to criminalise their bosses.

Wag The Dog [en.wikipedia.org]

[StoutFiles]

They don't have a side of the story to tell. BP's PR cannot get any lower.

Oh wait, it can! Money that should be going to cleaning up the oil or to people who's businesses have been affected by the oil is instead going to BP's PR fund. Way to go BP! I just hope their CEO "gets his life back" someday!

[londrum]

BP should spend some money on telling people exactly who owned and ran the rig that blew up -- the US company Transocean owns it, and another US company was working on it - Halliburton. And the piece of equipment that failed was built and supplied by a third US company - Cameron International. Those 3 companies carry more far more of the responsibilty than BP. Funny how Obama always forgets to mention that.

[netmeg]

Can we keep it to AdWords?

Lots of folks think advertising is evil, no matter who's doing it. I was pretty taken aback when I read that article about "manipulating" myself. By the author's token, I "manipulate" people into coming into my client's sites all the time.

[Sierra_Dad]

> President Obama expressed unease at the amount of money the company was spending to counter the negative attention

a lot of that negative attention has come from him. ...

Agreed. I'm not sure where the unease comes from. It's not Obama's money nor taxpayer's money that is being spent.

During his own presidential campaign, Obama spent close a to $1 million a month in Adwords to make sure his message came out on top. Although I didn't vote for him, I'd consider that smart marketing, not "manipulation of search results".

By now, there is nothing newsworthy about "Obama is really mad at BP", but the news media keeps repeating it as if there were.

[StoutFiles]

Buying terms like "oil spill"...

If BP isn't careful, they could start being associated with oil spills!

[Sierra_Dad]

If BP isn't careful, they could start being associated with oil spills!

Start?

[mortgagemax]

As if BP doesn't have enough problems - They now have to worry about the Google Adwords ban. They are clearly violating Adwords display URL policy. For keyword [oil spill] the display URL is BP.com yet the landing page URL is youtube.com

If they think stopping the oil spill is perplexing - just wait till they try to get a straight answer from Google support

[outland88]

Halliburton warned BP officials three times in the prior two weeks that there was a chance of a blow-out. It was documented multiple times in e-mail evidence sent between BP people. BP wanted to go the cheaper route and documented how much could be saved in money and hours. Halliburton also wanted to delay launch to test possible cement flaws. Again BP balked at this as documented in the e-mail. Bottom line you can't drill in that deep of water and not be taking every conceivable safety measure. As you're learning it almost impossible to plug if something goes wrong.