UK tourism on the web - are you a Google friend or not ?

Let's not beat around the bush here, Google is the most used search engine in the UK with 90% of the market, but when it comes to tourism, are the results it shows biased ?

As all UK hoteliers, holiday cottage owners, and tourism websites know, if you are not on the first page Google ? Then you are not visible. Of course not everyone can be, that's fair enough, but are you getting a fair deal ?

We tested out some searches ranging from hotels to tourist information and attractions in areas of England.

The first thing we noticed is multiple listings for a single web site. Does the user want to see multiple pages from the same site for everything they search for, TripAdvisor got up to 9 mentions on the first page on some of our searches. And why is Wikipedia on the first page for everything ? well they get a big chunk of money from Google.

Notice how often booking.com, hotels.com, or expedia.com come up ?

So what do they all have a common? What are the common factors ?

Firstly, they spend millions advertising on Google.
Secondly, they are all American corporations, most of whom pay little or no UK corporation tax.

So how far does American influence extend in the area of holiday accommodation and other tourism sectors ?

Hoseasons, that well known UK company - oops they are owned by an American corporate. The useful Lonely Planet - um just sold by the BBC to an American media company, so you will see them more often in your Google searches from now on. What about the useful holiday lettings.co.uk, I am afraid they are owned by Tripadvisor. And Tripadvisor themselves ? Yep that's part of a huge American company as well.

So how do you get to be a Goggle friend ?

Easy ( not ! )
There are two basic ways
1. First spend millions on Google Adwords, the adverts that appear at the top and the side. The adverts at the top, which are not really clear they are adverts, probably get clicked more often, so that means you have to bid higher. More tax free money for Google. Good news you will stay at the top and your site will probably suddenly appear in the 'natural' results under the adverts. Keep paying though or you won't be there very long. It really, really, helps if you are an American corporation as well.
2. Use what is called 'black hat' techniques, basically just cheat. Buy a related domain name, put on a few hundred words, then buy some links, OK , you need loads and loads of links. Wait a while, tweak a bit, see what happens and if your throw away domain name gets to the top 5 put in a divert to the site you want to really promote. If you get caught and you drop out of Google ? well just buy another domain name and repeat the process. There are other techniques , but I will not encourage you by spelling them out here.
3. Get a free blogger.com account and do as per 2 using blogger.com as as the domain name, Blogger is owned by, yes, you guessed it, Google !, so you are sure to stand a chance.

So why are you not a Google friend ?

Have good content ? Google doesn't care. Actually provide a real service or product ? sorry that's not good enough. A real authority on the subject ? nope that will not help you. A good selection of products ? so has Amazon so Google will show them instead. Informative and educational ? no chance Wikipedia every time.

So the questions remains - has Google got too big in the UK and is stifling competition? and does the bias in the results hurt the UK tourism industry, especially small and medium sized businesses ?

Part 2 - coming soon - can English travel companies and information websites survive ?
Part 3 - coming soon - what you can do about it