Big Tech (source: pressenza.com)
While doing some research recently, this writer was looking at the website of the four Republicans seeking a seat on the Roanoke City Council. Since they are posted under the “Vote 4 Roanoke” banner, it seemed like it should be an easy search. However, the keywords “Vote 4 Roanoke” did not show any links for their website, a vote4roanoke.com. Instead, the top three links that appeared first were for Official Roanoke County Elections Website.
The fourth link was al Official City of Roanoke Voting Website, with general information from November 8. (Subsequent searches sometimes changed them, with more city pages first instead of county links.)
The fifth and sixth links indicate how to vote in the Roanoke Coop grocery store choices.
The seventh link was a The Roanoke Star piece where City Councilwoman Stephanie Moon Reynolds is endorsing Republican and independent candidates on Nov. 8, but none of the Democrats.
The eighth, ninth, and tenth links were to Cardinal News or The Roanoke Times stories about local elections; one was a piece by Dan Casey about the Salem election.
The eleventh link was about some politics Roanoke, Texas.
A quick check of the top two or three pages of search results did not show vote4roanoke.com, the actual website in question.
Notably, the strange search results weren’t just for the four-member GOP team. The search for four-term mayor David Bowers’ campaign site also proved elusive.
A web search using the keywords “david bowers vote roanoke va” yielded these results:
First Sample ballot from Ballotpedia.
Links two through eight were mostly interviews or stories about Bowers from local media.
Links nine and ten were about Bowers’ legal practice.
the actual place, bowers4roanoke.com, proved difficult to find. You’d think that Bowers, with such a long record of public service, would have a campaign site that would be at the top of the search list. However, perhaps with his years in office and all the news that comes with it, the other stories were among the top search results.
For the independent candidate Rev. Preston Tyler, his official position was sixth on the list.
However, for almost every other candidate, typing their name and “vote roanoke va” puts their official site at the top.
The algorithms used by Big Tech to conduct searches have long been mysterious, and marketers know that cracking the puzzle can pave the way to riches. For candidates, strong or weak search results can make the difference between victory and defeat.
Whether using Google or DuckDuckGo, the search engine touted as a privacy-friendly alternative to Google, the results were similar. The websites of individual GOP and Democratic candidates appeared at the top of the search results, while links for independents Tyler Preston and Jamaal Jackson were third through fifth. Instead, the official Vote4Roanoke and Bowers pages were buried so deep they were almost impossible to find.
These strange results do not necessarily involve large nefarious technological actors. Maybe some of the web pages were designed by people who were better at search engine optimization (SEO). However, with confidence in Big Tech already low, these results seem strange to many and questionable at best.
-Scott Dreyer
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