When the Virginia Tech shooting occurred, a number of major news organizations went to Google and Yahoo! and immediately bought keywords relating to it, paying up to 48 cents (U.S.) per clickthrough.

An excerpt from the April 20 Globe and Mail story:

Depending who you ask, buying sponsored links around tragedy is either good business, or the worst kind of vulture marketing by media outlets.

"It's absolutely a very smart tactic for them, and I would be surprised not to see more of it happening," said Nick Barbuto, who advises marketers on Internet media plans at Cossette Communication Group Inc. "For consumers who are looking for news on certain events, it makes sense for certain outlets to try to get their news coverage to the forefront."

The New York Times refused an interview request about its practice of buying search terms related to news events.

But in an e-mailed statement, Diane McNulty, the paper's executive director of community affairs and media relations, said the Times buys thousands of key words related to important news events and topics "on a regular basis."

"In this way we can demonstrate to people who do not regularly come to NYTimes.com, the breadth and depth of our coverage," she said.

The costs of using paid search advertising can vary a great deal, because prices are negotiated largely through an online bidding system. Advertisers who pay the most get top billing, as long as their link is most relevant to the term searched.

Yesterday, it would have cost an advertiser 20 cents (U.S.) a click to be one of the top paid links related to the term "Virginia Shooting," according to an online estimate at the Google AdWords program. Top billing for "Virginia Tech Shooting" could be had for 5 cents a click, while "Virginia gun law" was going for 48 cents.

There was much debate online yesterday over the ethics of buying and selling search terms related to tragedy. One blogger, at mediaviper.com, called for a boycott of the media outlets that bought terms related to the shooting.

But Neil Sanderson, a Toronto-based blogger who has spent 30 years in the news media in Canada, Fiji and New Zealand, said the media outlets actually provided a valuable service because they were advertising their news coverage before links related to Monday's shooting showed up in the organic (non-paid) results.