Google Setback for Moneysupermarket

By SIMON FLUENDY

INTERNET search giant Google has dealt a huge blow to Pounds 1 billion flotation candidate moneysupermarket.com.

The financial services website, which brings together products from hundreds of financial services firms, in part relies on internet surfers searching key words such as 'loans' or 'car insurance' on Google and seeing the Moneysupermarket link in the search list. But Google has suddenly made key searches point to different sites, wiping out traffic.

Moneysupermarket says this is a temporary glitch.

Moneysupermarket is owned by founders Simon Nixon and Duncan Cameron and 18 other directors. Experts say the impact could jeopardise the expected flotation.

Google uses a complex, secretive system to decide the priority listing of websites.

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