Google is testing a set of comparison ads that would place its own experimental hotel listings service, Hotel Finder, above ads that other companies have paid for.
In a research note, analyst firm Macquarie points to a search results page for “Las Vegas Hotels”. Above the results is a list of comparison ads for various hotels and third-party hotel listings sites.
Google’s Hotel Finder appears at the top of the ads.
It’s only appearing for some users, and it’s just a test — we were not able to duplicate it.
But it’s unusual for Google to place its own products at the top of paid search listings.
This not only could help Google promote a new service, but could also drive keyword prices up, as advertisers are forced to compete with Google itself for top placement in paid search listings.
Macquarie notes that Google products have often come up at or near the top in ORGANIC search results — Google exec Marissa Mayer once admitted that Google placed pages from its own Google Finance site at the top of some search results, and the European Union is investigating complaints from competitors along the same lines.
Macquarie also notes that Google Hotel Finder today points users off site when they actually want to book the hotel — third-party aggregators like Booking.com. But Google could eventually bypass those aggregators and funnel users directly to the hotels, much as it’s done with its Flights service.
Google told us that this is all just a test, for now: “Just as our comparison ads have been helping consumers for years to compare financial offers for credit cards and mortgages, we’ve also been testing comparison ads for Hotel Finder since last summer. As with all experiments, we continue to monitor feedback closely to ensure that we’re serving our users well.”
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