e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

If You’re Gonna Run a Google Ad for Your Candidate, Make Sure the Link Works

December 11th, 2007

Update: Apparently, the problem was on Google’s end.

A little bird dropped a message off this weekend that someone’s running Google Ads for Ohio Congressmember Bob Latta and pointing them at the Republican fundraising site Slatecard. Good tactic! Latta’s raised $1900 through the site so far and is currently featured as a “Hot Candidate” on its front page.

Unfortunately, I doubt that these particular Google Ads put much extra cash in the kitty — mainly because the link to the fundraising page is broken. Since it could be fixed at any moment, I’ve take the liberty of saving the page in its damaged form for your enjoyment. Click on the Google Ad to the right with the enticing “Support Bob Latta with a donation and more at Slatecard” and see what happens — at least since this weekend, you’ll get a “file not found” [Hey David and rest of the Slatecard guys, how about a custom 404 page so that at least people can see SOMETHING useful when they request a page through a bad link?].

Rule #1 of working online: ALWAYS test your stuff. I’ve been coding HTML since about 1996, and I STILL make mistakes constantly, as the readers of this site take great joy in pointing out. You’re better off if you just assume that your links are broken and your coding sucks and test everything until you’re sure it all works. Otherwise, as in this case, you risk paying money for zero results.

– cpd

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