TripAdvisor Back From Its Google Vacation?
Last week it appeared that hotels reviews site TripAdvisor was blocking Google from showing its content on Places Pages. TripAdvisor never confirmed that it was doing so and Google attributed the absence of TripAdvisor reviews on Places to a technical problem.
However what you might call “circumstance evidence,” as well as comments made by TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer to the Wall Street Journal this weekend, seem to confirm the site’s displeasure with Google:
“Google does seem to be chasing us and I don’t like it one bit,” said Mr. Kaufer, adding that he has been negotiating with Google for about two months to try to improve his situation.
TripAdvisor is part of the coalition of travel sites opposing the ITA acquisition as well.
Mike Blumenthal noticed this weekend (and so did I) that TripAdvisor was now back among the review sources on Google Places Pages. A search for “Four Seasons San Francisco” last week showed that TripAdvisor content was missing:
Today on that same page TripAdvisor content has returned:
Postscript: TripAdvisor Watch argues that this resolution of the apparent dispute is not in fact a resolution and that TripAdivsor has merely been unsuccessful blocking Google at every turn:
[S]ome TripAdvisor reviews have persisted throughout the dispute, indicating that TA’s attempted block has not been 100% effective – Google has continued to scrape a number of reviews throughout.
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