Presidential Hopefuls Use Web Poorly

The presidential candidates are doing a poor job reaching likely voters through their campaign Web sites, according to a recent study conducted by a search engine consultant.

News and social media sites are the most preferred venues for those potential voters who use the Web to research candidates and their positions, according to a report by icrossing. In addition, the candidates' Web sites are not highly visible when voters search for specific terms on political issues, icrossing reports. Candidates need to focus more on their online presence because 42 percent of all voters use the Internet to research candidates' positions, according to the report.

An interesting tidbit from the report:

Barack Obama and war in Iraq are tops in current candidate and issue searches: Obama attracts the largest share of searches among candidates in the survey of voter interest as of May 2008, topping Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. The war in Iraq is the most searched for issue.