When it comes to selling products, Google might just be one of the best places to showcase it online. Advertisers know this, that’s why they spend truckloads of money bidding on search terms to win the top spot in online searches, while others try using various tricks to do the same.
Turns out one of the many companies doing it, is none other than Google itself.
If you’ve noticed, since Google launched its Google Pixel phone, ads promoting the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL have been all over Google Search. That’s because Google has been aggressively pushing its own products and constantly promoting them in search results.
According to an analysis conducted by SEMrush in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal, the search giant has been buying millions of its own ads to give its hardware top search spots.
So whenever someone enters a search term in Google, ads for products sold by Google and its sister companies appeared in the most prominent spot in 91% of 25,000 recent searches.
- Searches for smartphones almost always displayed ads for Google Pixel.
- Searches for laptops displayed ads for the Chromebook.
- Searches for watches were topped with Android smartwatch ads
- In 43% of the searches, the top two ads both were for Google-related products.
However, after the analysis Google seemed to have done some damage control. Google has also defended its practices by claiming all of its marketing campaigns have been designed to not impact the ad auction.
Google’s practice of favoring its own product ads on relevant search results has raised questions over whether it is violating anti-trust laws. In July last year, the European Commission announced a third round of anti-trust charges against Google.
(Feature image source: Reuters)