The Metropolitan Police (Met) has put aside £42,000 to promote their Anti-Terrorist Hotline through Google’s AdWords facility this year.
Google AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on its search pages, enabling advertisers to specify the words that will trigger their advert as well as the maximum amount they are willing to pay for each click on their ad.
The advert or ’sponsored link’ takes surfers to the Metropolitan Police Service website where information on the force’s Anti-Terrorist Hotline can be found alongside definitions of ’suspicious activity’ which may be worth reporting to the specialist counter-terrorism police officers manning the phones 24/7.
Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter also offer a similar service, but Google is the only search engine to form part of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Campaign.
The revelation is a result of a Freedom of Information request made by Guy Freeman on the FOI website www.whatdotheyknow.com. The website has been created by mySociety and enables the public to make their Freedom of Information Requests online so that progress can be tracked publicly and released information can be archived centrally.
It was all very interesting so hats off to Guy Freeman, I do however have a few more questions…
- What are the search words that the Met decided should trigger their ad on Google?
- How much is the Met prepared to pay-per-click on each of these words?
- What was the budgeted figure for last year and did the actual figure paid to Google fall within this or were there more or less clicks than expected?
