July 10, 2008 | Thursday

Google Comparison Search Trial Continues

By Stuart Thurstan - Digital Media Director in Latitude Publications |Articles |Marketing |News |PPC |Search Engines |Google |Search Expertise |Search Research |Search Technology |SEO

I hadn’t seen this since Duncan Fisher, our Head of Paid Search, commented on the new initiative last month but in coincidence to press articles about First Plus / Moneysupermarket yesterday, I captured a grab of Google’s comparison trial on certain financial terms as the story broke.

This will affect the sub prime terms on Google. Google have forced their way to the top of their own system (breaking their own rule on title character length) to carry out this 1st vertical search trial in finance. If this proves a successful test it will pave the way to vertical monetised solutions for insurance, travel, retail.

How serious is this trial for Google?

• I found this result yesterday, on the day that Barclays pulled the plug on First Plus which supported a large percentage of Moneysupermarket’s business.
• Moneysupermarket are reputedly one of the largest spenders with Google in the UK (see 2nd rank above), but must now be seen as Google’s largest competitor during this trial…

…What a conundrum. The stock exchange has reacted nervously - the value of Moneysupermarket’s share price dropped 32% this morning.

So what will the outcome be?

Google will probably receive a large proportion of clicks on these searches, sending CTRs (click through rates) of other companies bidding on these terms through the floor which in turn will raise the CPCs to these clients of Google.

The companies who are part of this beta are:
- Debtbuster Loans
- Fair and Square
- Norton Finance
- First Plus
- Barclays
- Norton Finance
- Ocean Finance
- Chase Zengo

Similarly to Moneysupermarket, ‘the system will help the user to decide which provider can give them the best secured loan!’ – we can expect Google to monetise this.