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TripAdvisor says Google won’t stop using its content

January 24, 2011 |

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, TripAdvisor's CEO Stephen Kaufer said talks between his company and Google broke down after the Internet search giant said it would continue to include TripAdvisor’s user-generated reviews of businesses such as hotels in its Google’s Place pages and Hotpot business-reviews service.

A Google spokeswoman said in a statement: “We can’t comment on ongoing conversations with partners, but as we’ve said before, our goal with local search is to help Google users find the local information they’re looking for online. Each day we send millions of customer referrals to local businesses and third party websites, such as review sites, through local search. The overwhelming feedback we get from users, business owners and website owners is that they value the answers and traffic they receive from local search.”

The spokeswoman added: “Since announcing the availability of Hotpot in November, the response from both users and businesses owners has been enthusiastic.”

The stand-off stems from a broader conflict between Google and some large websites. In recent months, sites including Yelp, WebMD and CitySearch have complained about a Google practice of sometimes promoting links to Google’s own websites above those of non-Google sites in the results page of its search engine. They say the practice threatens to decrease - or has already decreased - Web traffic to their sites in order to boost Google’s Place pages or Google Health pages, among others that were created in recent years.

Google sells ads on individual “Place pages,” which give information on millions of restaurants, spas, hotels and other businesses, including store hours and location.

Get the full story at The Wall Street Journal (free content)

Read also "TripAdvisor and Google Places Changes Good News for Lodging Businesses" at Blizzard Interactive

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