Google Squeezes Comparison Sites with Google Advisor
Google have placed all of their comparison services under one name, Google Advisor. This appears to the next in a series of moves by Google to squeeze comparison sites such as Money Super Market and Compare The Market (maybe they hate their adverts?). We blogged about how Google acquired Beat That Quote, and there was much speculation at the time over the reason – Dave now believes it will have been to attain the existing agreements Beat That Quote had with various companies.
So far it has only been released in the US and they only appear to be comparing mortgages, credit cards, CDs (like a fixed rate savings account), checking (current) accounts and savings accounts – although no doubt there will be more to follow.
There are rumours that the UK version of Google Advisor will be launched very soon.
You can read the original announcement on the Google blog.
9 Comments
don - http://www.bestratesource.com
reason #1001 why they have a monopoly on the market and need to be broken up.
Michael Cropper - http://www.michaelcropper.co.uk
Very worrying direction Google is heading in. Over the recent months Google has been putting more weight towards its own products and services and less about their organic listings which offer users real choice.
This is one to keep an eye out on….
Dave Haygarth - http://www.reversedelta.com
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
James
Can they even call it Advisor in the UK???
I thought the ‘giving of advice’ would require them to be FSA regulated at a nice and deep level. I might be wrong but that was my understanding.
Ulf Karlsson - http://bingoplayerz.com/
Thanks for the info, google are really risking their credibility if they continue to expand their area of influence.
Matt - http://www.atmedia.co
haha worrying
anon
I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees the bigger picture. Google first made it extremely difficult for affiliate marketers to use Google Adwords and Google Search to run their businesses (granted, there were and still are many abuses of consumer trust in those fields). In retrospect, I wonder if those difficulties were preemptive moves on Google’s part to wipe out any potential future competition in that realm.
Now it looks like Google directly competing with not only affiliate marketers, but also affiliate networks themselves along with online lead generating companies and sites that depend upon revenue generated from similar affiliate offers. Can anyone say “anti-trust lawsuit”?
I’m glad I’m not the only who sees the bigger picture and the bigger potential danger.
Michael Cropper - http://www.michaelcropper.co.uk
What will be next…. not to show any insurance company websites? After all, they are all underwritten by several of the main insurances such as UK Insurance Ltd, Aviva, etc
MoneySupermarket Direct.co.uk - http://www.moneysupermarketdirect.co.uk
Google is no longer like a search engine all the businesses they are buying, they are offering the products and services under there own branding. Soon they will be pushing there own services and not other competitor websites eg Moneysupermarket, Compare The Market, Go Compare, Confused etc. Wonder when it will be rolled out across the UK. They must think they can make a lot of money out of price-comparison services. I think it’s bad what Google are doing.