A new Google mortgage comparison tool introduced in November last year is part of the collateral damage affiliated with the entire shutdown of Google Compare this week.
Google Compare was a specialized, stand-alone service for consumers to gather quotes from a number of providers for financial products, such as car and travel insurance, credit cards and mortgages.
Although a consumer service, it was ultimately an advertising product for the financial service industry.
Zillow Group and LendingTree were helping power Google Compare‘s mortgage information.
In a letter to Google Compare partners, Google said it would start ramping down the Google Compare product from today and terminate the service by March 23 in both the U.S. and the U.K.
It said: “Despite people turning to Google for financial services information, the Google Compare service itself hasn’t driven the success we hoped for. We greatly appreciate your partnership and understand that this decision will be disappointing to some. But after a lot of careful consideration, we’ve decided that focusing more intently on AdWords and future innovations will enable us to provide fresh, comprehensive answers to Google users, and to provide our financial services partners with the best return on investment.”
A Google spokesperson confirmed for Inman that although searches on these queries remained high, the product didn’t get the hoped-for traction, and revenue was minimal. This was due partly to the limited availability of the products in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Google may, however, still focus on the space and look at new product avenues.
Both Zillow Group and LendingTree played down the news today.
LendingTree spokeswoman Megan Greuling said, “Google has been, and will continue to be, a great partner for us in paid and organic search. And while we were helping to power Google Compare for the mortgage product, it was ultimately competitive to our core offering. Loans are a considered purchase that require focus, expertise and deep lender partnerships, areas where LendingTree excels.”
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Zillow Group spokeswoman Amanda Woolley added: “It is difficult for a technology company to succeed in a complicated space like mortgages.
“Zillow Group has the benefit of intense focus on real estate and mortgages. Over the past eight years we have built a leading platform that excels at delivering a great user experience that gives home shoppers access to real time rates and more than 224,000 ratings and reviews of lenders, while allowing lenders to connect with the largest audience of home shoppers on the Web.”
