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We all know that search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to drive traffic to a website and increase sales, but SEO is also useful in disseminating ideas and messages. These messages often originate from businesses in the form of press releases, positive product reviews, and reputation management initiatives. But surely SEO can do much more, as is being demonstrated in the United Kingdom.

The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), an agency of the U.K. government, has its eyes set on sweeping the Internet with “positive” interpretations of Islam. The OSCT plans to train certain groups (government-approved) in the art of search engine optimization, in the hopes of combatting radical extremism.

According to a spokesman from the OSCT,

In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith goes on to say,

We will host a core network of people who will put forward positive messages from the British Muslim community on the internet, directly challenging the extremists that set out to groom vulnerable individuals.

Will It Work?

Whether or not SEO will play a significant role in fighting terrorist recruitment is yet to be seen, but skeptics to the plan predict that the overall effectiveness will be limited at best. Groups such as the International Centre For The Study Of Radicalisation And Political Violence (ICSR) believe that,

Extremist websites are not normally found via web searches on sites like Google, but because people are told about them in web forums, at schools, universities or community centres.

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