Google has been using “onebox” results for travel related searches since at least October of 2005. I’m forced to wonder if, during the entirety of that period, Google’s been sending the default link to Expedia. For example:
I searched for Seattle to New York and got:
Then clicked the “Flights from Seattle/Tacoma, WA to New York, NY” – the most obvious of the links, which sent me to:
This seems very un-Google-like… Am I the only one being served Expedia by default? I tried the searches in SF this morning and at home in Seattle tonight with the same results. More searches produced similar defaults:
The choices (Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, Orbitz & Hotwire) represent the most popular travel booking sites, and there’s already some inherent bias in serving those choices, but defaulting to Expedia seems like playing favorites…
