Skift Take
Google has made frequent changes to its search results pages over the years, and Tripadvisor has often suffered as Google has its own competing businesses. Recent changes appear to have hit Tripadvisor particularly hard.
Tripadvisor offered a muted outlook across its major businesses, and attributed the softness to changes in Google's travel search results pages.
Tripadvisor pointed to Google's free, organic search results as the culprit. Last week, Trivago said Google's changes to paid advertising formats were hitting its financial results too.
Commenting on diminished travel demand in April and into May, Tripadvisor Chief Financial Officer Michael Noonan said Wednesday during the company's first-quarter earnings call: "We also witnessed a wide-reaching update to the (Google) travel SERP (Search Engine Results Page) that extended for a more prolonged period of time than typical updates that we have seen in the past."
Officials said the changes to search engine results pages on Google, which has roughly a 9