Yelp and TripAdvisor are at the receiving end as search behemoth Google has literally thrown them out of search results.
The problem was uncovered during the weekend when even specif key words like ‘Yelp ozumo’ or ‘TripAdvisor Hilton’ buried these two websites far lower than many other irrelevant results. In both instances, a Google result featured at the top of the search results.
Needless to say, the incident has the potency to divert traffic from Yelp and TripAdvisor to other websites.
When contacted, Google admitted to the problem and added that a ‘bug’ was responsible for the erroneous output.
“The issues cited were caused by a recent code push, which we’re working quickly to fix,” a Google spokesperson informed Re/code.
The affected companies however have a different take on the matter.
“Google is now intentionally providing the wrong answers for local searches on the mobile Web. This is not good for consumers or for competition but good for maintaining Google’s monopoly,” rued Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp.
The CEO also took a dig at Google by stating that the search engine was as truthful as ‘Donald Trump’.
