Google dominates searches around the world
Credit: The Telegraph
Most purchases begin on Google: a hunt for a new camera, recommendations for Friday night takeaway and before the pandemic, a summer holiday.
We have been trained to believe that Google is the Switzerland of online shopping, serving us neutral results from the tens of thousands of searches it returns every second.
It has grown to carry out 92pc of searches in Europe, millions of searches ahead of the closest competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, which accounts for just 3pc of the market.
But critics say British consumers may not be getting the best deal because Google is now less focused on the “10 blue links” it became known for when it first launched in 1998.
It now serves more adverts made to appear like a search result — or promotes apps where it generates more advertising revenue from, such as Google Maps, YouTube or Google Flights. Google says consumers prefer having instant information, rather than having to click through. But The Telegraph found instances where its own price comparison tools do not yield the best deals.
These concerns have also reached regulators in the US and Europe who are examining the way Google displays its search results with renewed interest.
“Money talks when it comes to dominating search results,” says Charlotte Sheridan, a director at the Small Biz Institute which helps clients promote brands on Google and social networks. “You’re not always going to get the very best results at the top…It is not really a level playing field.”
Google share of digital ads in UK
When someone in the UK searches for a “cheap hotel in London”, the first four links Google shows are adverts, followed by a Google Maps panel which has the names of four different hotels. A travel company has paid for these to appear here, along with their nightly rate. All this quickly fills the screen space at the top of the search results.
Below these ads are ten organic search results, followed by a final two adverts which hover just above the button that takes users to the next page.
The payments travel companies make to appear on Google Maps benefit Google in two ways: when we click on these links Google receives money but it also keeps users on its own search engine, rather than moving off onto rivals like Tripadvisor and Kayak.
‘Is Google getting worse? Or is it just me?’
Google says it strikes deals with travel companies to try and get the best offer for consumers, but this is not always the case. The four hotels which appeared on Google Maps when searching “cheap hotel in London” showed nightly rates of £19, £19, £21, £28. But Kayak, a travel comparison site showed the top four cheapest prices as £17, £19, £20 and £21. It takes two scrolls of the page to get to Kayak, the first organic link Google returned.
There has been continued suspicion in recent years that Google’s inclusion of more ads and other kinds of results could be harming the quality of what you see when you search.
Google search | How it decides what you see
“Is Google Search getting worse and worse? Or is it just me?” wrote one Reddit user in 2018. “Why are users’ specific search terms ignored and so many non-relevant results are pushed to the top?” asked a Quora user in the same year.
Being the top search result matters. 28pc of people click through to the top organic search result on Google, according to a 2020 study of billions of searches by Sistrix. Clicks dropped off dramatically after the top link.
Google’s focus on showing local search results rather than a list of links to websites can produce mixed results.
A search for “plumber in London” showed five adverts, followed by a banner suggesting people click through to comparison sites. But most of the page was taken up by a map showing local results including businesses named “Local Plumber In London” and “Plumber In London.”
While these plumbing companies did have some positive reviews, Google appeared to promote them over better-known companies because their names match the search term of “plumber in London”.
Credit: The Telegraph
A similar problem occurs when searching for an electrician in London. The top three local results are all businesses with the search term “electrician in London” in their name, one of which has just seven reviews.
Regulators are now paying heed to accusations from travel, retail and review companies levelled at Google over the years. These allegations include claims Google followed local review websites like Yelp or Expedia’s business model after realising consumers had a keen interest in the service, and used its own search engine to promote its versions all with the goal of keeping eyeballs on its advertising.
The European Union has investigated Google’s shopping comparison service, fining the business €2.4bn (£2bn) over allegations that it promoted its own products above those of competitors. Adam and Shivaun Raff, who created Foundem, a British business that ran a popular price comparison site, accused Google of destroying their business with its rival shopping tool. Google is appealing the fine.
Google has repeatedly denied to regulators in Europe, the US and the UK that it has tried to eliminate competition. It says that its goal is to offer the best search engine service for consumers.
Timeline | Antitrust lawsuits against Google
In its case against Google, the Department of Justice claimed Google has for many years, “used anti competitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising — the cornerstones of its empire”.
Its investigation cites emails where Google executives express concerns they could lose market share to search sites specialising in areas such as travel, warning “the risk is that Google is the go-to place for finding information only in cases where there is sufficiently low monetisation”. High margin sectors, like travel or hotels, could be seized by rivals unless Google built competing products.
It would be hard to argue that Google, with its investment and best-in-class engineers, has become a less effective search engine, but this relentless cross promotion has in some ways become “overbearing”, a former Google executive says.
“A search term can lead you to a map link that will give you a set of directions, but that might be exactly what the user is looking for,” says John Cawdery, now the chief executive of advertising giant Incubeta. “The converse is that it is slightly overbearing as it is only using Google’s products.”
Ironically, many of the companies who grumble about Google’s monopoly are some of Google’s top advertisers. Skift Research estimates that globally, the travel industry, including Expedia and Booking.com, spent around $16bn in advertising on Google in 2019.
Cawdery, who has worked across Google’s global advertising business, encourages brands to think carefully about the impact of spending its advertising dollars on Google as “there are other platforms”.
“Years ago, this wasn’t a discussion we were able to have because the technology wasn’t there and people were getting a far worse service as a result. So it kind of ebbs and flows and it really comes down to the bargain that the user is prepared to strike with Google.”
Google’s dominance over the open internet is not only frustrating for niche industries who claim it is infringing upon its business models, but Britons to whom “Googling” is an acceptable verb.
Over the years Google has gradually made it harder for consumers to click on links that take them off Google properties. Searches regularly display “snippets” of information, typically taken from a news article for which the publisher receives no compensation for, to keep users on the search engine.
A Google spokesman said: “People expect Google to give them the most relevant, high quality search results for their query. These can come from big established companies like Kayak, or smaller, independent businesses.
“When it comes to specialised searches about travel or local services, testing has consistently shown that people want more helpful information than just a link to another website, and that’s why we have developed new ways of displaying information, like showing booking options, maps, prices or pictures. Providing more relevant results like these creates more choice and competition, and generates billions of visits to sites across the web every day for free.”
As Google has grown to process more than 3.5bn searches per day, the company has developed an almost-bewildering amount of ways to show information. Everything from map results and videos show at the top of searches, pushing the company’s bread and butter of 10 blue links further down than ever before.
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