If you are searching the internet for information on terrorism in the Middle East, you might come across the US state department.

The department is using Google (NASDAQ: GOOG - News) 's AdWords service to draw in internet surfers searching for particular words - such as "terrorism" - and redirect them to its own website.

In recent months the US administration has quietly been running the advert­isements for its America.gov site, which is intended to give foreign audiences the Washington take on US ­foreign policy, culture and society.

Other words and phrases that trigger the adverts include "Middle East peace", "human rights", "press freedom", "renewable energy", "food aid" and - apparently the most popular search the administration has paid for - "US elections".

As is customary with Google's service, the advertisements are geared to particular regions of the world. A search for terrorism on Google's sites in the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Canada yields the same advertisement for "peace and security: creating security through improved relations and co-operation" and a link to the America.gov page.

But similar searches on the Google sites in Israel, Egypt, China and France do not yield the same result.

"We need a very strong presence on the web; that's communications today," says Jonathan Margolis at the Bureau of International Information Programs, the state department agency responsible for both taking out the advertisements and the America.gov site.

"We are trying to engage, inform and influence foreign audiences. Before you can do either of the last two you have got to find some way to engage them . . . We found that when you launch a website and if you want to attract a target audience, Google ads are a very effective way of drawing people to the site."

He says the state department is spending $25,000 to $30,000 (€19,000, £15,000) a month on the adverts, based on the number of users who click on them, as well as about $15,000 a month for adverts for longer-standing US government Arabic and Farsi-language sites.

He adds that the adverts for the Arabic and Farsi sites have generated 300,000 views a month and that the US looks at the regions of the world in which to run the advertisements from month to month.

One focus is countries or regions with large expatriate populations.

However, as the US approaches the end of George W. Bush's time in the White House, it has its public relations work cut outfor it.

Some 47 per cent of people worldwide say the US has a negative influence, compared with 35 per cent who see it as positive, according to a poll of 17,500 people in 34 countries released last month and commissioned by the BBC.