With more than 70% of all searches in the U.S. alone, Google is the world’s dominant search engine with considerable power over displaying what users see on the web. With Google Places, it is abusing this power.
The success of any website relies on two crucial elements: how useful it is to the consumer and therefore how highly it ranks in search engines. With both of these elements, Google is manipulating its systems and position to promote Google Places over other competing sites. Links to Google Places appear at the top of the ‘natural’ search despite being an inferior product to sites that are dedicated to review collection and therefore more useful to the consumer. Google is also forcing TripAdvisor to allow its reviews to be on Google Places, and as the world’s largest travel site with more than 40 million reviews and opinions, become the key content provider in Google Places for hotel and other accommodation reviews.
While we expect competition in the travel planning sector, we expect the success of the competition to be decided by the consumer. The EU Commission is currently investigating claims of how Google is adopting unfair practice; Google Places is another example of how they are abusing their dominant position in search.
As the situation continues to unfold, we know that many of you may have questions about Google Places and how we at TripAdvisor are approaching it, and I want to get those questions answered. Over the next couple of days, we’ll be asking you to share these questions on Twitter, and I’ll be answering them right here on the TripAdvisor blog. Follow us at @TripAdvisor for additional details on how to submit questions and join in on the conversation.
Steve Kaufer, CEO, TripAdvisor
Guidelines for submitting questions:
- I’ll only be answering questions about Google Places. Questions on other topics will not be responded to at this time.
- In order to have your question included, please be sure to use the hashtag #AskSteve.
- I will be answering ten questions. Answers will be posted here, on the TripAdvisor blog, and shared on Twitter. Follow @TripAdvisor for updates.
16 Comments
My core question is how is Google “forcing TripAdvisor to allow its reviews to be on Google Places” is this a loophole in a licensing agreement or is there no formal deal structure? #AskSteve
Hi Robert,
The licensing agreement between TripAdvisor and Google
has expired; there is currently not an agreement in place.
I have very little time for Google Places in its present guise – it is unstable and not reliable. Google is pimping Google Places in search results for their own financial ends, not for the benefit of the consumer. If the consumer prefers to search Google Maps/Places he has always had that option – there is no reason to shove it down our throats whether we want it or not.
It is rich for Mr Kaufer to want Google to cache his site content (which is not generated by TA but by third party reviewers) in order to promote his own site’s position in the search results, but not to show those same reviews in Google Places results. He is no more thinking of the consumer than is the search engine giant – it’s all about chasing the buck.
One is as bad as the other. I’ll understand if you don’t publish this as both sides are so convinced that there’s only their side to the argument.
Have you been able to figure out what reviews show up in Google and which don’t? At first there was only the direct stream into google, then it was mark up, now it seems like it doesn’t matter if you have mark up or not, you reviews could be found. We have had a few of our reviews found, but since all our web pages are the same, shouldn’t google find most of them if they have a good system in place.
No idea, Karl. I’ve been monitoring this since mid-December and it looked in early January that Google had licked it completely, with full TA reviews showing. Now, however, we’re back to the mid-December situation where most are blank but some are present. No consistency. The current lottery certainly doesn’t help the consumer make a better decision!
TripAdvisor has built its business by listing hotels and attractions owned by other people and creating a review system which is populated by third-party content. By creating a monopoly on the travel review industry, and securing high rankings in search engines, many hotels/attractions are “forced” to list with TA in order to be found. Yet TA provides very little (if any) support to its owners. How is this any different than what Google is doing to TA? #AskSteve
Heather,
Our mission is to help Travelers across the globe plan the perfect trip anywhere in the world. In order to do so, we believe we need to provide a comprehensive listing of hotels, attractions, and other businesses that would be of interest to travelers. We want to list all attractions, hotels, restaurants, etc. so that consumers get the benefit of a comprehensive directory. TripAdvisor does not charge anyone for a listing.
TripAdvisor has always sought to present a balanced opinion and we were one of the first review sites – if not the first – to offer owners the ability to respond to reviews. We view it as only fair as there are usually two sides to every story. As a point of interest, the vast majority of ratings on TripAdvisor are positive, and our traffic continues to grow, indicating that clearly something is working for consumers. We have internal teams dedicated to working with owners to update their listings, post photos, write management responses to reviews, etc.
Steve
The vast majority of reviews on TA are honest – both the good ones and the bad ones. However, some fakes and simply malicious reviews do slip through and apart from unfairly harming a place’s repution these do nothing to help consumers. A “right to reply” is insufficient redress. In future will TA remove those that owners say are simply malicious with no foundation in fact? Or does it prefer to take the side of an anonymous person about whom nothing is known?
So if Google Places pulls reviews from TripAdvisor, and if FlipKey reviews are under the TripAdvisor umbrella….shouldn’t all FlipKey reviews by association come up under Google Places? #AskSteve
Hi Jeff,
Google is deciding on their own which reviews to display.
Steve
Since owners have no say over whether their properties are listed on TripAdvisor, it seems reasonable that TripAdvisor should have no say over whether its reviews are shown on Google Places.
meanwhile, we little people are going under!
OK so now I see we are late to this dastardly party but can anyone help us URGENTLY? !!
In our ‘places page’ the third-party link to Tripadvisor has been broken. Now I know it is a serious problem for so many and possibly a fued.
Without any links to our reviews showing on the search results or places pages, we are not getting many guests at all. The competition still has their TA reviews showing. This is very very serious as our 58 fantastic tripadvisor reviews (that we have earned over 6 years and we are in top spot) are the primary reason people come here. For the first time ever we don’t have advance bookings. This is killing our business.
Huskisson Bed and Breakfast
PLEASE help us as we are really struggling. I had no idea having our eggs in this one basket was so dangerous for us!
Hi Kate – Thank you for your comment, and sorry to hear that you’re encountering issues. Would you be able to offer more details on the broken link? Is it on the Google Places page? Thanks.
Hi Amanda
I tried to reply before but it hasn’t appeared…
We have lost our 5 gold stars and link to our (now) 62 TripAdvisor reviews on Google Places and on their search results page. All our competition in this village (6 other B&Bs)still have their TA links,so we have lost our competitive edge (as top TA B&B) and our enquiries have gone from about 10-20 a day to 1 or 2.
(There is an spam link to a misleading Travelpod page about huge+bathrooms. Not even our own correct travelpod page.)
We have been earning these excellent TripAdvisor reviews for 6-7 years and have always suggested to guests who want to write an online review to go to TA (so we would improve our ranking). We now realise we had all our eggs in your basket. Big mistake.
I have spoken to Google and they say it is TripAdvisor refusing to allow ‘content’ to be ‘scraped’.
What I don’t understand about the dispute between TA and Google is that it is seems to me to be a ‘link’ not ‘content’ that Google includes in it’s Places pages. Yes, there are some teasing words and then a link to TA. Why is this bad for TA? This link is crucial for thousands of small lodging business who rely on the huge amount of traffic searching for accommodation through Google.
The dispute seems to be causing disaster for us loyal TA customers. It seems that the more we built and promoted our TripAdvisor reviews; the more trouble we are in. Travel business and industry pages are filled with similar stories to ours.
Please can you look into this urgently. And please can you explain to Mr Kaufer that this is potentially catastrophic for so many guesthouses and B&Bs. We should not be treated as fallout or collateral damage.
TA and Google built the highways and bridges for us to drive on. Now it seems the bridges are being taken down.
Huskisson Bed and Breakfast, NSW, Australia
I can supply links if you want.
Hi again Kate – Thanks for your response – we understand your concern and questions. We’re unhappy with the way Google Places is displaying TripAdvisor reviews for a number of reasons, including the fact that Google picks out one review, seemingly at random, to represent the sentiment of thousands of reviews. It’s not a good way to represent the opinions of all of our users and severely takes away from travelers’ ability to make informed decisions. It’s also unfair to restaurant owners, hoteliers and others who are affected by the way Google Places displays TripAdvisor user reviews. We support Google displaying our content in natural search, ranking the results based on relevance and usefulness to the consumer as they have historically. Our objection is to how Google has recently chosen to display and summarize our content within their Google Places product. We hope this helps clear things up, and appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
Spot on with this write-up, I honestly feel this site needs much more attention. I’ll probably be returning to read more, thanks for the advice!
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