- Feb 28, 2024
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Tripadvisor just reported a big $369.5 million writedown on its legacy Hotels and Other segment. The company blamed much of it on traffic drops from search changes. CFO Mike Noonan said SEO exposure sits in the mid to high teens. That means organic traffic is still hurting bookings growth.
He added SEO will keep weighing on growth into 2027, though the drag looks to be easing as free search traffic shrinks. Experiences segment bookings grew 2 percent in Q3 but the SEO impact was still around 3 percent of that growth. On the earnings call analysts asked how close they are to Google Zero. Noonan pointed to the core Tripadvisor brand for most of the risk while Viator stays mostly paid.
Marketing now eats 48.8 percent of revenue up from 43.3 percent last year. They shifted spend from free to paid channels because of those SEO headwinds. SEM is still their biggest channel but auctions got tougher and clicks dried up in August. CEO Matt Goldberg noted they're spreading money into social and other mid-funnel spots.
They also tested AI for citations on Viator and see it converting at higher rates but it's still under 1 percent of traffic. This lines up with broader industry moves away from pure organic search. The article is from Search Engine Journal at SEJ article.
Anyone else tracking SEO drag on their own bookings or wondering if everyone is moving to paid channels?
He added SEO will keep weighing on growth into 2027, though the drag looks to be easing as free search traffic shrinks. Experiences segment bookings grew 2 percent in Q3 but the SEO impact was still around 3 percent of that growth. On the earnings call analysts asked how close they are to Google Zero. Noonan pointed to the core Tripadvisor brand for most of the risk while Viator stays mostly paid.
Marketing now eats 48.8 percent of revenue up from 43.3 percent last year. They shifted spend from free to paid channels because of those SEO headwinds. SEM is still their biggest channel but auctions got tougher and clicks dried up in August. CEO Matt Goldberg noted they're spreading money into social and other mid-funnel spots.
They also tested AI for citations on Viator and see it converting at higher rates but it's still under 1 percent of traffic. This lines up with broader industry moves away from pure organic search. The article is from Search Engine Journal at SEJ article.
Anyone else tracking SEO drag on their own bookings or wondering if everyone is moving to paid channels?
