Sponsored-link ads play campaign role

Those "sponsored-link" advertisements that appear near Internet search results and on many blogs are emerging as a factor in the race for the White House. Google has seen "exponential growth" in sales of sponsored-link ads to the major presidential campaigns in 2008 vs. 2004, says Peter Greenberger, Google's head of elections and issues advocacy. And partisan groups are buying online ads to boost their candidates as never before. Terms associated with the election entered into Google's main search page are turning up sponsored links to material praising or criticizing Barack Obama and John McCain. In a first-of-its-kind survey, Didit polled 1,438 respondents last week about political ads. About 3.3% said changing their vote, based on online information, was "somewhat likely," and 3.7% said it was "very likely." In many states, polls separate the candidates by a few percentage points, so online ads "may be the tipping point for the winning candidate," says Lee.