Price Comparison Websites

It's been widely reported today that the European Commission is launching a preliminary probe into Google's dominant position as a gateway to internet browsing as allegations have been made by competitors claiming that Google is demoting their websites' positions in the SERPs.

The first I heard about the news was on Radio 4 this morning where a spokeswoman for Price Comparison site Foundem claimed that results from Google's Product Search (formerly Froogle) appear in at the top of the SERPs, while other price comparison sites' pages are pushed down the listings and out of sight. She claimed that while Google presented itself as neutral, that actually "this is increasingly untrue, as in the last couple of years Google has started to use its search results as a marketing channel for its own services."

As I commented last week, it must feel pretty terrible when you find out Google has just entered your industry, but it should also be said that relying on a single advertising channel such as the SERPs is not generally a good business tactic. Google points out that websites such as Foundem don't provide much original content, as it's mostly scraped from other sources, and as everyone knows in the SEO industry, original and unique content is one of the keys of good ranking in the SERPs.

A justified compliant?

The Price Comparison market is, in most sectors, pretty saturated anyway and also, as far as I am aware, listing products in Google is free. Google states: "inclusion of your products is completely free. There are no charges for uploading your items or the additional traffic you receive."

The reason Google provide the product search service is to presumably drive traffic to their core AdWords product. Therefore it is perhaps arguable that because Google doesn't earn commission from product click-throughs (as Price Comparison websites do) they aren't directly competing anyway. (UPDATE: apparently Google do earn commission in some cases)

Potentially large fines...

The European Commission could fine Google as much as 10 per cent of their annual turnover which would amount to around $2.3 billion, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out.