Workers pick up oil patches and tar that washed up on the beach at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 2010 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.Joe Raedle/Getty Images
BP Plc has bought terms such as "oil spill" from search engine providers including Google Inc. to help direct Internet users to its website as it attempts to control the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
A spokesman said BP would pay fees so its own website would rank higher or even top in the list of results when Internet users search on terms such as "oil spill", "volunteer" and "claims".
BP did not say how much it was paying for the service but President Barack Obama has criticized the company for spending $50-million (U.S.) on TV advertising to bolster its image during the crisis.
BP said it wanted to help people who were trying to access information on the BP website to find it more readily, rather than intending to draw away hits from other sites.
"We know people are looking for those terms on our website and we're just trying to make it easier for them to get directly to those terms," the spokesman told Reuters.
The largely green and white BP.com website has a large red button at its centre highlighting the "Gulf of Mexico Response". The right hand side of the response site has a list of buttons advertising information on claims.
BP is trying to control oil spewing from a ruptured well on the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico by using a containment cap.