Tag: Thumbtack

Google Penalizes Site It Invests In

Google has penalized a company that it backs financially in search results, by taking manual action on it for apparently violating its guidelines.

Last year, Google launched Google Capital, a growth equity fund to fund growth-stage businesses. The eighth company it invested in was Thumbtack, a site that introduces people to “qualified professionals” in hundreds of categories to help them complete projects. Customers answer questions about their needs, and Thumbtack connects them with these professionals.

Search Engine Land reports that it has confirmed with Thumbtack that it received a manual action for “unnatural links to your site,” and that it has seen a “huge decline” in Google referrals as a result, which has impacted the leads that the professionals in its network receive. The company also claims to have never paid for any links.

Those who have analyzed the situation believe this solicitation for links (which someone shared in the Moz Q&A forum) might have something to do with it:

As others have noted, this might fall into what Google considers a link scheme, which is against its guidelines.

It has to be embarrassing for Google when it has to penalize a site that it is directly supporting. Still, it’s not as embarrassing as the time Google had to penalize its own Chrome site.

Images via Thumbtack, Imgur

June 9, 2015
Google Capital Backs Thumbtack, Its 8th Company

Google Capital is leading a $100 million series D round of funding in Thumbtack, a service that is described as helping people “accomplish the personal projects that are central to their lives”.

Also contributing to the funding are past investors Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, and Javelin Venture Partners. Thumbtack has raised a total of $150 million to date.

What Thumbtack actually does is introduce people to “qualified professionals” in over 700 categories throughout the U.S. to help them complete projects. Customers answer questions about their needs, and Thumbtack connects them with these professionals within hours.

“First and foremost, Thumbtack is a great product. As a consumer, it’s the best product I’ve ever used to hire local professionals. The bigger story, however, is the potential for small businesses: Thumbtack has a real opportunity to transform how local professionals find new customers,” said David Lawee, General Partner at Google Capital. “The Thumbtack team is highly impressive and the opportunity in front of them is enormous. We’re excited to be a part of it.”

“We were already a strong and well capitalized business, but David and Google Capital offer something truly special, and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with them,” said Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta. “David brings years of experience working to help small businesses market themselves online, and the Google Capital financing and partnership allows us to think even bigger and further expand our business.”

Thumbtack joins the following companies in Google Capital’s portfolio: SurveyMonkey, LendingClub, Renaissance Learning, Auction.com, Credit Karma, Freshdesk, and MapR.

Image via Thumbtack

August 20, 2014
A Deal is Not Always Such a Great Deal

Thumbtack.com put out some research last week suggesting that many daily deals in the local services industry are priced equal to or higher than the average local price of the service. In other words, the deal isn’t always much of a deal.

Since that study, the site has done some more digging, placing phone calls to various businesses that have run deals with Groupon and LivingSocial, and has found that the deals appear to have been inflated in various cases.

“In 8 of the 10 deals we reviewed, the ‘regular’ prices quoted by Groupon and Livingsocial were higher than the prices quoted by the same merchants when we called them,” says Thumbtack.

“Of five Groupon merchants that we called, all quoted prices lower than the merchant’s regular price advertised by Groupon,” says Thumbtack. “Of five LivingSocial merchants that we called, three quoted prices lower than the merchant’s regular price advertised by LivingSocial.”

It’s not as if inflating prices for sales is a new concept. I’d say the practice has been around for decades, but in the midst of the daily deals craze, it’s got to be worth noting that some businesses may be doing this. Perhaps before you buy a “deal,” it would be wise to price the service to begin with, before determining just how great a deal you’re actually getting.

October 14, 2011