The political web: patterns that matter for marketers and communicators

As voters in the United Kingdom head to the polls on Thursday, much will be said about social media’s role in modern democracy. But there's an older online space where parties still fight passionately for views, clicks, and votes. Welcome to the political web.

Using Oxzeon’s groundbreaking SEO and competitor intelligence product that looks at backlinks relationships, we mapped the network of higher-ranking sites around England’s eight largest political parties. What we found was a tight ecosystem of political, media, and junk sites - and it raised some intriguing questions:

• Are the key media sites just about traffic, or is connectivity also a factor?
• Just how well do party, MP, and candidate sites support each other with links?
• Do some of the major parties have a junk problem?

These insights extend beyond politics. From our work with clients and partners, we know that many patterns in the political web mirror those in other online spaces. For marketing and communication professionals fighting for attention on the web and in Google search results, understanding your competitive web ecosystem can yield valuable insights about your presence and influence.

The best part? We've published an online interactive of our study that you can explore for free. Details in the comments.

Familiar data, new maps

If you've got SEO experience, you'll already be familiar with the concept of referrers - sites that link back to yours. In early May 2024, we mapped the top 125 referrers for the home sites of the eight largest parties in English politics, ranked by a domain authority analogue from our data partner. Accounting for overlaps, that exercise revealed over 900 sites. We then explored the top 125 referrers for each site, allowing us to build a map - or graph - of this ecosystem.

The visualisation above colour-codes domains by party affiliation, with media sites in white and unaffiliated or junk sites in grey. We also removed a handful of mega-platforms like WordPress and Reddit because their incredible connectivity could obscure the patterns we aimed to highlight.

Metrics only a map can provide

An Oxzeon report looks at many metrics for each site in the network, including ones for quality, traffic, keyword rankings, etc. But building a graph allows us to look at something extra: metrics about sites' positions in the network. For this study, we focused on three key metrics:

• Out degree: How many other sites a website links to
• In degree: How many sites link to a website
• Directed betweenness: How often a site sits on the (shortest) pathway of links between any given pair of sites in the ecosystem (what we call a 'centrality' metric)

Many user journeys will start with a Google search and end on the next site visited, so metrics that focus on how highly a site ranks are critical. However, old-fashioned connectivity matters too: users can still move from site to site as they pursue a topic, and Google has always cared about the quality and relevance of sites that link to yours.

Interestingly, while big news sites like the BBC and The Guardian get lots of visitors, they weren't always the most connected within all parts of this ecosystem. We identified a distinct group of sites that play a more ‘central’ role in the online political landscape than traffic figures alone would suggest.

Political blogs: the connectors

Perhaps the most intriguing finding is the presence of party-focused blog sites that act as key connectors in the political web ecosystem. Despite their clear party affiliations, sites like ConservativeHome, LeftFootForward and LibDemVoice act as pivotal ‘gateways’, linking various parts of the ecosystem. While not always traffic giants, these blog sites have high levels of direct connectivity with relevant sites and occupy key positions of overall 'centrality' within the network.

Our findings seem to confirm what many seasoned political communicators and digital strategists have long suspected: niche, focused blogs often punch above their weight in the digital political arena. These specialised blogs are crucial connectors, bridging gaps between official party channels, mainstream media and the voting public.

What this means for you: Specialised blogs and news sites exist in almost every industry and market. Identifying those most relevant to you is essential. Notably, these blogs may offer a more accessible path to coverage and backlinks compared to media giants like the BBC.

While major news outlets have stringent editorial processes and high competition for attention, niche blogs often have more flexibility in their content and a hunger for fresh perspectives. This can make them more receptive to new voices and ideas, potentially offering an easier route to getting your message out there.

Parties don't have homes - they have estates

When we looked at the top referrers for the major parties - Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats - we saw they had significant estates: collections of 'owned' sites for MPs, candidates, constituency branches, etc., all linking back to their home site. This suggests these parties have the resources and expertise to maintain an extensive online presence. We also suspect they have technical platforms that make building and deploying new sites easier.

Whilst this was true to a lesser extent for the Greens and Reform, the detected estates for the SDP and Women's Equality Party were much smaller. While this doesn't definitively prove that smaller parties have fewer websites overall - there could be sites we didn't detect - it does suggest less established or less interconnected online presences.

What this means for you: Many larger SMEs and corporates have similar web estates. Backlinks analysis is a quick way to see the shape of a competitor's web footprint. This can be especially useful when assessing rivals operating across multiple markets or geographies.

Estates have different patterns …

We're always interested in pairs of sites with links in both directions, and an essential element of our study was identifying cliques of such sites. Unsurprisingly, almost every party had a clique around its home site, but the sizes and patterns varied significantly.

The party that really caught our eye was the Liberal Democrats: their sites link to each other a lot (and we really do mean a lot). This approach might keep visitors browsing their estate for longer, suggesting an interesting way to keep users engaged.

For Labour and Reform, we saw quite a unipolar arrangement, with many mutual relationships radiating from the home site in a 'hub and spoke' pattern. It's what you might expect to see for a collection of sites with a strong, organising force behind it.

The Conservatives showed a similar but more multi-polar arrangement, with a smaller percentage of sites mutually linked to the party’s home site.

What this means for you: We love finding cliques because they very often tell us about competitors' subsidiaries, partners, and digital advertising relationships. Looking at your own web estate, how good is your cross-linking game? Does your estate's pattern encourage users to stay in your orbit?

… and not all estates are equally well-maintained

As we identified domains with an obvious party affiliation, it also became clear that for most parties, a proportion of their estate was made up of parked domains and sites that are broken or no longer maintained. We're curious about how well Google can differentiate between a dormant site that's fallen into disrepair and the junk-SEO sites that dominate large parts of the web.

Labour notably had a high proportion of such sites. However, our map was created in early May 2024, and it’s possible many of these have since been refreshed. We plan to reassess the landscape post-election, so watch this space.

What this means for you: If we can find parts of your estate that look like they need some love and attention, Google and users can too - and might take a less charitable view than we did. It’s vital to keep constant track of your web inventory and not lose value from sites that bring you increased connectivity.

What you can do next

As our lives become more digital, marketers and communications experts need a deep understanding of how websites connect and interact. This is true whether you're in politics, business or any other field. Mapping out your online landscape can give you a powerful and actionable perspective that underscores where your strengths and opportunities are.

Here are three key recommendations based on our findings:

• Look beyond visitor numbers. Focus on how well-connected your site is in your industry's online ecosystem. How does it fare when compared to your competitors?
• Consider partnering with niche blogs or industry-specific platforms. They often have more engaged audiences than broader media outlets.
• Map out the digital powerbrokers in your field. Understanding these key connecting sites can significantly improve your communication strategy.

How do you find your way around your industry's online world? Share your tips and insights in the comments below. And if you're looking to boost your digital presence (or that of your clients if you're an agency or independent practitioner), please don't hesitate to contact us. We're here to help you make the most of your online ecosystem.

PS Don't forget to check the comments for details of how to access the online interactive.

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