Google maintains shopping search monopoly despite EU move to foster greater competition
Google's ‘shopping’ search ads still hold sway over virtually all other competitors with a 99.6% market share in the UK, despite a European ruling designed to force the search giant to make room for its rivals, according to The Times.
Google still monopolises search advertising despite EU ruling designed to foster competition
Changes introduced last year sought to whittle down Google’s near monopoly by leveling the playing field for advertisers but thus far the measures have had a negligible impact with Google’s own shopping platform still overwhelmingly populated by the companies own ads.
Analysis by Searchmetrics conducted five months after the search giant was forced to open its doors to rivals showed that in excess of 99% of ads that appear alongside search results were still homegrown – despite being hit with a record €2.42 billion fine and ordered and allow rivals, such as price comparison websites, to list their own products within 90 days.
At issue is Google’s continued ability to outbid competitors for slots on so-called ad ‘carousels’ despite Google moving to allow competitors to bid on equal terms for slots. In Britain this sees 6.1% of carousels populated by at least one ad from a competitor but these are often lost amid up to 28 other Google ads.
Daniel Furch from Searchmetrics remarked: “It is early days in this new era of Google Shopping, but our initial analysis suggests the service’s competitors as yet have no meaningful presence, at the same time as their search visibility has continued to decline.”
Kelkoo.co.uk has emerged as Google’s main adversary in the UK but the study actually indicated that its visibility, along with other competing services, actually fell by 12% between June and December 2017, with that trend continuing unabated following the Google Shopping overhaul.
Initially it had been thought that the regulatory changes would impact negatively on Google's revenues.