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Coronavirus

Google Travel Search Is Unrecognizable as Advertising Dries Up

Dennis Schaal photo
Dennis Schaal

Photo Credit: This is the breakfast area of the Howard Johnson in Flagstaff, Arizona, which continues to advertise in Google Search.  Howard Johnson

Skift Take

It took novel coronavirus to see free organic links from Expedia, Tripadvisor, and Booking.com rise in prominence in Google Search. This isn't necessarily a game changer for the online travel agencies at a time when travel demand is in the tank. It's more like a temporary reprieve from the Google World Order.

Free links from travel companies are now appearing dramatically higher in Google Search on desktop and mobile — but it isn't because regulators have clamped down on the search engine or Google has reformed its advertising-tilted business practices. The dearth of travel advertising because of the coronavirus pandemic has made Google's pages look almost unrecognizable. For example, Google's one-box of hotel search results, wth its maps and reviews directing consumers right into Google's own travel business, is now the highest search result in many cases. With travel ads largely missing from Google Search, the silver lining is that organic links from the likes of Tripadvisor, Booking.com, and Expedia are newly visible right below the "fold" on desktop, and on the second page in Google results on mobile.

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To appreciate the depth of Google's changes in search, consider this screenshot from 2015 depicting a search for hotels in its headquarter city, Mountain View, California. The first three paid text ads on the left are from Expedia, Hotels.com, and Booking.com, and below that is the Google one-box of search results that take users into

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