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Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39118029,00.htm

BBC goes on Hutton Google buy-up
Paid-for search results to boost online offering

By Jo Best

Published: Wednesday 28 January 2004

With the BBC-bashing Hutton Report now out in the open, the Beeb is reported to have been cashing in on the flood of people searching for the latest online news about the report with some rather nifty internet footwork.

While the BBC has certainly had its part to play in the affair, it seems that the Beeb wants to make the best of a bad situation, courtesy of search leader Google. Auntie has taken a leaf out of the book of big business and decided to do a spot of self-promotion via paid-for links on Google.

The BBC has been buying up terms like "Hutton report" for Google sites in Britain and the US, so if the terms are entered into the search engine, the primary results link to BBC Online's news coverage of the report.

This is the first time the BBC has tried out such an experiment with advertising and hopes to get more users clicking through to the news site for the first time. If the Hutton experiment goes down well, then we can expect to see similar advertising drives rolling out on sport and other news subjects, according to The Guardian.

While the BBC has been cleared of any responsibility for weapons expert Dr David Kelly's death, the move to exploit a situation that the corporation had a part in – revealing in an "unfounded" report that the dossier on Iraq's weapons potential had been "sexed up" – might strike some as in being in bad taste.

The BBC was not available for comment.