Google is facing pressure from Thomson to increase the size of its pay-per-click keyword account, which would make it one of the world’s largest.
The travel firm advertises against more than 1.5 million different keywords on the Google search engine and wants to double the figure to more than three million.
That would make Thomson one of the leading users of keyword search in the world, alongside US supermarket giant Wal-Mart and online auction site eBay.
However, TUI northern Europe new media director Graham Donoghue said Google is struggling to cope with managing the current 1.5 million keyword account and is trying to encourage Thomson to reduce its number of keywords. He urged Google officials last week to discuss the issue.
Donoghue said the operator could easily advertise against three million different search terms with the inclusion of misspellings and other close matches.
“Google can’t handle it at the moment,” he said. “We want to get to three million search terms. There are a million terms associated with travel reviews that aren’t directly related but could lead to sales.”
Google head of travel Esteban Walther refused to comment.