The majority of U.S. Presidential candidates have a negative reputation on search engines, according to a new study by Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim. The 2008 Presidential Election Candidate Reputation Study found that 15 of 18 candidates had negative results within the first 20 when a user searched for their names on Google and Yahoo.
Democrats Barack Obama and Mike Gravel, and Republican Ron Paul were the only candidates with no negative search engine results.
“The study demonstrates that with more than a year to go until the 2008 presidential election, candidates are not fully managing their search engine reputation,” said Beal, founding principle of Marketing Pilgrim. “As the election race heats up, voters will be influenced by what they discover on the web. A single negative Google result could be enough to lose the election.”
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