I think its been a little over 6 months or just about 6 months since Google started indexing Twitter and Facebook pages. Actually I think it has been much longer for Facebook, regardless there has been a more concentrated effort by Google to index the real time information. Since then it has been left to speculation on how they were going to prioritize Tweets and insure that they are relevant. Obviously this is quite an undertaking when you can imagine that their are not just millions of web pages being created everyday, but additionally million and millions of tweets happening every day and compounding the difficulty is the fact that tweets are limited to 140 characters. So there is not a ton of context available for Google to evaluate a tweet.

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There are have been a number of announcements over the last two days by companies like Mortech, Leads360 and Kaleidico regarding their “partnership” with Google, more specifically Google’s Comparison Ads.  These companies are now “certified applications” for Comparison Ads and can provide some level of service for the lenders active on the comparison site.

So, coming across these announcements peaked my curiosity about what companies made the list of certified partners. Initially it was pretty tough finding this list, but I did come across a cached page that listed specific partners. I am not sure if this is a complete list, but it seemed like a recent list that now is no longer available.

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Google’s Comparison Ads has been live in the U.S. for about a month and a half and many are curious to know how well it is working for the lenders involved. Well, for starters everyone should understand that all the lenders are currently bound by an NDA and all public comments by the lenders go through Google for approval. Lucky for us our friend and mortgage refinance was able to get his opinions approved by Google and subsequently we are able to publish them here. specialist  at RMC Vanguard Mortgage Corporation, Owen Raun.

So with out further ado An Insiders View of Google’s Comparison Ads:

By Owen Raun with RMC Vanguard Mortgage Corporation

RMC Vanguard has been a lender involved in the initial stages of Google’s venture into mortgage lead generation.  Google makes this on line shopping option available to a limited number of consumers in 15 states who are searching for mortgage.  We are only active in 5 of those states and focus only a smaller range of consumer profiles than most so I imagine we are in the bottom quarter of total leads received to date.  Assuming this blog will be read by lenders I have the following comments.

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It has come:

Tipped off by Jay Weintraub, founder of LeadsCon and Author of LeadConfidential, Google recently announced the launch of Comparison Ads. Which currently is focused on mortgage rate shoppers, but obviously its name “Comparison Ads” leaves it wide open for other products to be introduced. This is big news for the lead gen space.

This new service will allow advertisers to target/filter their marketing efforts on a very granular level when compared to Adwords. When you compare it to buying leads from LendingTree, LowerMyBills, QuinStreet or any one of the hundreds of lead companies in the space there is no difference. Advertisers will be charged on a per lead basis where a lead is defined by either a phone call or the completion of a inquiry form. Read the full story

Over a year ago Google began testing a mortgage rate search within their Merchant Search platform in the UK. Not much more then a few blog post here and there discussed the new search tool. Most couldn’t imagine it going much further then just a simple test and the fact that it was circled around generating calls, not specifically data leads, added to the passive concern of so many.

With the new LendingTree suit against Mortech and the revelation of Google’s continued interest in breaking into the mortgage lead generation industry it has proven that the UK test was not performed on a whim and they did have long term intentions. What can be debated is what those intentions truly are. I think to do this we have take a look at more then simply the disheveled mortgage lead generation industry, but the online marketing industry as a whole.

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It was all over the Internet today that LendingTree has filed a lawsuit against service provider and 2008 “Innovator of the Year” , Mortech. The suit accuses Mortech of contract infringement and breaking their confidentiality agreement.

About two years ago LendingTree partnered with Mortech and recently became aware of their communications and possible partnership with the Google, whom over the past year has been quietly figuring out the real estate and mortgage lead generation industry. This suit may have inadvertently leaked the launch of a Google’s rate table application and lead generation process. This project has been rumored for a while and is an interesting topic on its own, but clearly is a threat to the mortgage lead gen world and more specifically LendingTree. This suit, while directed at Mortech, could be a foot in the door for LT to stall the launch of the new Google service. The reality is that there are a number of Mortech like companies and the actual pricing engine technology is not proprietary to just Mortech. If LendingTree can somehow prove that Mortech leaked information about LendingTree developments and future plans or have possibly used their knowledge learned from LendingTree to benefit Google, they may be able to throw a wrench into Google’s plans indefinitely.

“We will vigorously protect our contractual rights, our company, our customers and our clients in this matter,” CEO Doug Lebda said in a statement.

Regardless of the motives, LT seems to think they have a strong enough case to take this past the initial, “please, stop doing that” requests.

So what do you think? Is this all to disrupt Google’s plan to enter into the lead gen business or is this only a Mortech and LendingTree contract infringement case and that’s it?

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