Mayor Bloomberg isn’t taking any chances that his new personal Web site will get lost amid all the clutter on the Internet, so he’s paying for Web ads to lure traffic there.
A “sponsored link” for mikebloomberg.com pops up every time someone types the mayor’s name, or just about any variation, into the Google search engine.
Bob Lawson of Rubenstein Associates, speaking for the mayor, declined to say how much Bloomberg is spending on the ads.
He suggested the sum was small, describing it as “incremental” to the cost of the entire site.
Brian Farrell, who works for a company in Austin, Texas, which advises companies how to maximize their exposure on the Internet, said ads on Google are usually billed on a per-click basis.
“He’s probably paying between 3 and 5 cents,” Farrell said.
Advertisers can set a cap, establishing the maximum they’ll pay in any given month.
That probably isn’t part of Bloomberg’s game plan, since he shelled out $160 million in his two campaigns for City Hall.
Joe Mercurio, a veteran political consultant, said the mayor’s actions don’t come as much of a surprise.
“If you’ve got the money to do that, that’s the way you influence public policy in America,” said Mercurio.
“You want people to get the full story on Bloomberg – but in their controlled version.”
What puzzles him, added Mercurio, is that the Web site doesn’t have an interactive feature to mine extra information from viewers.
The bigger mystery, of course, is why the mayor in his sixth year in office needs a new outlet for sharing his views and accomplishments.
The Web site offers no hint of what’s next for the billionaire politician. The home page briefly describes Bloomberg’s “nonpartisan” style.