Searches for popular landmarks, even those including the Trip Advisor or Yelp brands in the search query, resulted in only Google reviews being returned in the search results.

Both companies accused the search engine of being anti-competitive, whilst Google itself claimed that the results were due to a glitch in a recent algorithm update – something it was working to resolve.

Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to Digital Minute, where we’re looking at why Trip Advisor and Yelp got into a spat with Google.

The review websites Trip Advisor and Yelp publically criticised Google recently, after their reviews for hotels and restaurants seemingly disappeared from Google searches.

Searches for popular landmarks, even those including the Trip Advisor or Yelp brands in the search query, resulted in only Google reviews being returned in the search results.

Both companies accused the search engine of being anti-competitive, whilst Google itself claimed that the results were due to a glitch in a recent algorithm update – something it was working to resolve. Both Trip Advisor and Yelp disputed that suggestion, claiming the search engine was unfairly ‘burying’ rivals to promote its own service.

The dispute comes as Google faces an EU investigation into how it promotes its own services to search users. In many markets, such as finance, Google is now offering its own reviews and price comparison engines ahead of those from established brands.

Our newly-released consumer finance intelligence report actually discusses how this has impacted financial brands, so why not download your free copy by clicking here.

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