MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Which Political Party wins the Internet War?

By

Even though the vast majority of South Africans have limited access to the internet via mobile, the presence of political parties in the search engines and social media is still a vital component of any political campaign for the simple reason that the internet and the people on it can be considered as major influencer’s in their community.

So we sat down and worked out a method to rate each party and it’s potential exposure to a voter looking for information (specifically a party manifesto or party policies) on any of the parties taking part in the 2014 National Elections and used the following methodology:

We did a Google.co.za and Bing.com search for the full name of each “Political Party” and assigned points according to what we found.

We used three main ranking factors:

1. Search Engine Ranking Factors:

  • Web Site Address – 10 points for own .za domain, 8 points for own domain on other TLD’s, 5 points for free domain, 0 points for no domain
  • Search Ranking – Google: points based on ranking on first page – 10 for 1st place organic down to 1 for 10th place organic (total can be more than 10 if more than 1 result)
  • Search Ranking – Bing: points based on ranking on first page – 10 for 1st place organic down to 1 for 10th place organic (total can be more than 10 if more than 1 result)
  • No. of Results – Google: 1 point per million results
  • No. of Results – Bing: 1 point per million results

2. Web Site Ranking Factors:

  • Clear link to Manifesto: 10 points
  • Usability: Subjective ranking based on Alan’s opinion of the site including load time, colour, structure etc.

3. Social Media Ranking Factors (only taken into account if there are CLEAR links from the party’s web site):

  • Twitter – 10 points if yes and active in last 24 hours, 5 points if yes, 0 points if no
  • Facebook – 10 points if yes and active in last 24 hours, 5 points if yes, 0 points if no
  • Google + – 5 points if yes and 0 points if no
  • Pinterest – 5 points if yes and 0 points if no
  • LinkedIn – 5 points if yes and 0 points if no
  • Instagram – 5 points if yes and 0 points if no
  • YouTube – 5 points if yes and 0 points if no

Applying the above ‘rules’ the Top 10 Political Parties based on Search Engine Ranking are:

  1. African National Congress – 64.003
  2. Economic Freedom Fighters – 62.156
  3. Congress Of The People – 59.93
  4. African Christian Democratic Party – 57.0741
  5. African People’s Convention – 56.56
  6. Al Jama-Ah – 49.341
  7. Inkatha Freedom Party – 48.2318
  8. Minority Front – 48.0883
  9. Democratic Alliance – 47.283
  10. Agang South Africa – 47.1228

Applying the above ‘rules’ the Top 10 Political Parties based on Web Site Ranking Factors are:

  1. Vryheidsfront Plus – 19
  2. African Christian Democratic Party – 18
  3. Agang South Africa – 18
  4. Azanian People’s Organisation – 18
  5. Democratic Alliance – 17
  6. United Democratic Movement – 17
  7. United Christian Democratic Party – 17
  8. African National Congress – 16
  9. African People’s Convention – 16
  10. Ubuntu Party – 16

Applying the above ‘rules’ the Top 10 Political Parties based on Links from Web Site to Social Media are:

  1. African Christian Democratic Party – 35
  2. United Democratic Movement – 30
  3. Vryheidsfront Plus – 25
  4. Agang South Africa – 25
  5. Azanian People’s Organisation – 25
  6. Democratic Alliance – 25
  7. African National Congress – 25
  8. Peoples Alliance – 20
  9. Economic Freedom Fighters – 20
  10. Congress Of The People – 20

The final overall scores:

  1. African Christian Democratic Party – 110.07
  2. African National Congress – 105.00
  3. Economic Freedom Fighters – 97.16
  4. Agang South Africa – 90.12
  5. Democratic Alliance – 89.28
  6. Congress Of The People – 83.93
  7. United Democratic Movement – 82.17
  8. Azanian People’s Organisation – 81.05
  9. Peoples Alliance – 75.33
  10. Vryheidsfront Plus – 75.09
  11. African People’s Convention – 72.56
  12. Ubuntu Party – 70.15
  13. Inkatha Freedom Party – 67.23
  14. Minority Front – 63.09
  15. Al Jama-Ah – 59.34
  16. Workers And Socialist Party – 53.66
  17. Kingdom Governance Movement – 53.02
  18. Patriotic Alliance – 51.11
  19. African Independent Congress – 51.02
  20. Front Nasionaal – 50.92
  21. Pan Africanist Congress Of Azania – 47.51
  22. United Christian Democratic Party – 47.03
  23. Keep It Straight And Simple – 35.19
  24. First Nation Liberation Alliance – 31.04
  25. National Freedom Party – 0.56
  26. Pan Africanist Movement – 0.11
  27. United Congress – 0.06
  28. Independent Civic Organisation Of South Africa – 0.03
  29. Bushbuckridge Residents Association – 0.01

NOTES:

  • The one big anomaly is the SEO score for the EFF – Google results far outstrip Bing results.
  • Parties that had clear links to MANY Social Media accounts near the top of their pages or in their headers scored better than those that don’t have such links.
  • A party that stood out for consistency of message across web site and social media was the Vryheidsfront Plus – open responsive web site with good use of colour.
  • Those parties using yellow/gold need to tone down their use thereof and use it for highlights rather.
  • Good use of header and teaser space makes a huge difference – in this short time to the elections more parties need to target visitors to their sites with their manifesto’s and social media links above the fold, especially on the index page and, preferable, on every page.
  • Very few of the parties have updated their sites and many are just confusing – I don’t get the sense that they are selling their product very well. Messages are confusing and one has to hunt for information.
  • Voters need to know what you stand for, are you active, how do I contact you?
  • Sites need to be responsive, light and quick to load if parties want to talk to the mobile internet generation where the masses of the undecided seem to be.
  • We only saw ONE political party making use of AdWords when searching for their name – the African National Congress. This is a huge opportunity for political parties wishing to appear in the SERP’s pages when people are searching for their opposition which is not being taken advantage of.
  • Accept that these results are biased in the favour of political parties that dominate the Search Engine Results for their name, results AND that have the MOST links to ACTIVE Social Media Sites FROM their own web sites.

2014 EC Election Poll

These political parties are contesting the 2014 Eastern Cape Provincial elections on 7 May 2014.
Please note you STILL need to go to the polls on 7 May 2014 and VOTE in person .........

  • Vote to see the results of our poll

2019 National Assembly Election Poll

These political parties are contesting for seats in the 2019 National Assembly elections on 8 May 2019.
Please note you STILL need to go to the polls on 8 May 2019 and VOTE in person .........

  • Vote to see the results of our poll
Political Party Search Results
Political Party Search Results

 

The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profileMy Flickr profileMy Pinterest profile

Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.