There’s been talk for a few years now how Google will start to go after highly profitable verticals, whether that’s mortgages, finance or insurance. Yet I’ve always found that they’ve been very conservative in their efforts to infiltrate these markets, instead being happy to simply earn money from those areas via AdWords.

It now looks like that’s changed, with Google aggressively going after the credit card industry in the UK.

Not only is Google appearing in the paid search space but they have a custom ad with three layers of text under the title – something that no other AdWords advertiser can replicate.

Here’s Google’s ad for ‘credit cards’ in the UK:

And it’s not just credit cards. Here they are advertising on ‘credit cards comparison’:

In fact, Google is top for the following keywords and that’s just the tip of the iceberg:

• credit card
• best credit cards
• compare credit cards
• credit card deals
• credit cards balance transfer
• credit cards with 0 interest
• credit cards with rewards

All the major brands in the vertical – MoneySupermarket, GoCompare etc – will see a big hit in their search traffic for these terms, and for the ordinary affiliate this vertical is now almost a no-go.

What industry will Google go after next?

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