My stomach was spongy and my fingers were a tad sweaty and apprehensive as I typed in my top secret keywords, but Achilles Last Stand was pounding the sub under my desk and providing the drive to keep my pace. My targets were set, and all I needed to do was track these SERPs. My intentions were not corrupt or villainous but still I felt the heightened excitement because these marks were high profile, one most likely belonging to the future leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

One after another the data streamed in…. joinrudy2008.com, hillaryclinton.com, exploremccain.com, barrackobama.com. I was not investigating these power domains looking for their views on fiscal responsibility nor affordable health care. No, not me… I was going in for a look under the hood at the slick maneuvers, unbaked blunders, search engine optimization and internet marketing of the sites that hope to drive their candidate to the White House.

From now until the presidential election in 2008 I am going to uncover the strategies, track performance, and kindle discussion on the tactics used for the presidential candidate’s web sites. Have candidate sites gone web 2.0? Do they use their title tags correctly? Are they using all the new social tools? How can local candidates learn from these? Have they hired SEO firms?

So far I have included the major party players that have put their hat in the ring. Many 3rd party or independent candidates have not yet declared but there will no doubt be too many for me to follow. I will choose and include some of the independents and 3rd party candidate sites though because I feel they well deserve inclusion and study.

Please feel free to join in with any comments, questions, ideas, and requests in regards to the candidate’s internet marketing and SEO. This is not part of any political agenda, so leave your political debates and opinions at the door, we don’t care who you want to vote for or why. We are only out to discuss the internet marketing aspects of the campaigns.

So at this point of the race here are the DFL and GOP candidates I have included in the study:

The next post of this series is Web sites of the 2008 Presidential Candidates. It will lay the base of our discussion by identifying the candidates official web sites and other domain information.