Hotel industry, you're on notice: Google appears to be running a test that places its own Google Hotel Finder at the top of very competitive, hotel-related queries. Search Engine Land reader Alex, who works in the hospitality industry, tipped us to this development and at least one of our SEL editors was able to replicate it on a search for "las vegas hotels." The Hotel Finder ad is listed as a "comparison ad" and is separated very slightly from the regular AdWords listings below it. It occupies premium space at the top of Google's search results and pushes hotel ads and organic lis [...]

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Google: Other | Google: Other Ads | Top News

Forget using Google Maps when you want to find a hotel to stay at for a business trip or family vacation! You can now use Google's Hotel Finder. Google Hotel Finder is a search tool specifically designed to make it easier to find and compare hotels for your trips. The features include: Draw simple shapes to define the neighborhoods (yes, more than one!) that interest you. See popular locations on maps with highlights One click adds hotels to your shortlist, where you can review them easily. See if you will get a good deal by by comparing a hotel’s current price with its typical on [...]

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Other | Google: Other Ads

Google's click-to-call offering has received a lot of attention over the past few months, and for good reason. There is great value in offering advertisers an option to track and monetize mobile Internet-driven phone leads. The model allows mobile consumers searching Google to click on the phone number in an ad to auto-dial the advertiser. In turn, the advertiser is charged the price of an AdWords click. Adding to the interest, in March, Google announced an option for national advertisers to take advantage of click-to-call through phone extensions regardless of the mobile user's location&m [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: Other Ads

DoubleClick's advertising exchange has been in the works since at least 2007 and before Google acquired the company. But this morning Google is formally announcing the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which reflects a milestone of technology and platform integration between Google and its DoubleClick unit. Google sees this an an opportunity to attract more display and brand ad dollars online and to boost revenues on that side of the house, where there is much more room for growth than in paid search (at least in the US business). Some version of an "exchange" has been around for awhile at D [...]

Related Topics: Google: DoubleClick | Google: Other Ads | Google: YouTube & Video | Top News

It's now a cliche to point out that consumer audiences have fragmented. However, once mighty media have seen audiences dwindle over the past five or so years. Accordingly almost all traditional media are struggling, exacerbated by the recession to be sure but caused by the rise of the internet (mobile will fragment audiences further). Many advertising sales channels are trying to respond to the audience fragmentation issue with network and/or multi-platform strategies. Call it an effort to put "Humpty Dumpty back together again." Google for its part had once seen itself as a kind of medi [...]

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Google: Mobile | Google: Other Ads | Google: TV | Google: YouTube & Video