🔍 Latest travel industry move to compete with Google

Dec 09, 2019

Good morning search marketers, happy Monday.

Like other travel-focused sites, TripAdvisor has seen its market leadership erode as Google has beefed up travel capabilities and reviews. To help differentiate itself, the company has been expanding its restaurant services and distribution capabilities. To further those efforts, TripAdvisor acquired SinglePlatform last week. SinglePlatform syndicates restaurant menus to search engines and directory sites online. TripAdvisor said it will offer menu and listing management to restaurants globally and improve its menu integration on the platform.

Privacy-centric browser Brave reported monthly active users have doubled in the past year to 10 million, and daily active users have tripled to 3.3 million. The browser has an interesting twist on advertising. Users who opt-in to view ads can earn blockchain-based Brave Attention Tokens and take 70% of the revenue share, while publishers and creators that participate are allocated tokens in proportion to the amount of time users spend on their sites. The number of Brave Verified creators across YouTube, Twitch, Twitter and other platforms has grown from just 28,000 at the start of the year to nearly 340,000, the company reported.

At 10 million users, Brave is a blip in the browser share wars, but like search engine DuckDuckGo, the surge in activity that both have seen is a sign that there is a small but growing audience for privacy-minded digital platforms.

Read on for a Pro Tip on why you should pay attention to your GMB listings and more.

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Pro Tip

Your GMB page is a dynamic asset so prioritize its updates

"To everyday users, a Google My Business page is a destination for learning more about a business, finding directions, posting opinions about the business and contributing content such as photos of an establishment," explains Adam Dorfman of Reputation. "For the business itself, the GMB page is a dynamic asset. We've been reminded of this reality recently when Google made it possible for hotels to add services to their GMB pages, which people can view from Google search and Google Maps. Like any asset, your GMB page requires close attention and care. Businesses that monitor and update their GMB pages have a distinct advantage over those that do not.

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