Google Caught Promoting Own Services In Search Results

A study performed on behalf of the Wall Street Journal has found that Google puts its own ads at the top of around 90% of its search results pages. The digital data company SEMrush looked at 1,000 results for 25 search terms on Google's search engine. It found that adverts for products produced by Google's parent company, Alphabet, consistently appeared at the top of the search results. This included items such as the Google Pixel smartphone, the Android smartwatch, and the Google Chromebook which appeared at the very top of 100% of searches using the term “laptop”. The results of the study were then shared with Google, after which the ads disappeared and appeared to be replaced with products from Apple, Lenovo and Apollo. Alphabet said, in response to the findings, that all of its marketing procedures were "consciously and carefully designed", adding that its own ad rules were set to tougher levels than its ad customers in order to “govern the use of our own ads products". 

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