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Question regarding buying keywords as an ethical defense strategy...

jrogers's picture
Submitted by jrogers on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:33am
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Roy's "Social Media Disasters" states that a productive and speedy response to a disaster is "to buy and own unsavory keywords so that people searching for those videos and articles will see links to your official response". I am not quite sure what s/he means by "buying" and "owning" keywords, but it strikes me as specious. Owning (i.e. controlling) the means of communication seems counter to the populist and intellectually free foundational concepts that many tout the internet to embody.

I realize that perhaps "buying and owning" does not erase the problem, but instead injects your position into the discourse, but it strikes me as more akin to advertising and monopolizing the discourse rather than providing an equitable position to the conversation.

Would appreciate any responses...

I thought this was

TracyGuza's picture
Submitted by TracyGuza on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 11:49am.

I thought this was interesting as well and I think it is referring to the ability to purchase keywords on Google Ad Words or a similar service.

http://www.google.com/ads/adwords/

Essentially, you pay per click for keywords associated with your website or story and the purchase of the words places your information at a higher rank in search results. This is one method of controlling search results on search engines and is indeed used both for good and evil like most advertising techniques.

That would be my assumption

meredithfarkas's picture
Submitted by meredithfarkas on Sat, 09/04/2010 - 7:21am.

That would be my assumption too, though the "own" term doesn't really fit well there. People often want their ads to come up when someone put specific search terms into Google. The terms could be for their product area, their competitor's company, or, in this case, negative keywords around their own company. If someone was looking for information on "JetBlue delays", JetBlue could buy adwords that would allow them to provide a link to their Customer Bill of Rights. It's just about making it as easy for people to find the good things about you as it is for them to find the bad.

I don't know that the conversation is ever 100% equitable. Certainly it's easier in the Web 2.0 world for consumers to get the word out about bad products or services, but companies often utilize SEO (search engine optimization) techniques and purchase adwords that will allow them to rise to the top of people's searches.

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