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Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - North America

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McCain v. Obama: Search and Wikipedia

August 13, 2008

From our ABCNews Blog:

What can search terms tell us about the current state of the presidential race? Unfortunately, due to confounding reasons or "search missions" (i.e., a candidate search may be a sign of support or a mission to find negative information) are not accurate predictors of election results. However, search term data can provide interesting insight into how often we search for a candidate and what may be behind our searches.

First, a chart of search-term volume (U.S. Internet searchers) between McCain and Obama:

presidential searches 1

Obama has maintained his lead in searches, although that lead has been shrinking as we approach November. Using Hitwise Search Term Analysis, we can determine, over the last four weeks, the end destination of searches for the two candidates. First Obama:

barack obama sta.jpg

Now McCain:

john mccain sta.jpg

One of the most interesting elements of the search term analysis between the two candidates is the difference in Wikipedia as an end-destination for searches on each candidate's name. "John McCain" searches result in more than 40 percent more visits to online social encyclopedia Wikipedia. Search visits to Wikipedia often indicate an educational search mission, or in other words, searchers are seeking more information about a candidates background and platform. Could this indicate that a significant number of McCain searchers are swing or undecided voters? I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 06:05 PM | (0) | (0)