A side note: for anyone not aware (or confused by Silicon Valley tradition on constantly rewriting origin stories), TripAdvisor started in the dot com bubble as a B2B site. They clearly stated their business model was to provide reviews to other sites. Only that after the bubble burst, TripAdvisor had none left. They then basically invented modern SEO: long descriptive URLs, pages pulled out of a db with keyword variations in mind, constantly refreshing content with user submissions, and, the killer, buying links to influence Google’s naive ranking methods (which quickly evolved this to buying entire sites for their SEO potential). The billion dollar public valuation is entirely the result of a decade long SEO play.
(Source: was in online travel related business at the time. Was the first to buy links form Matt at SeatGuru, later acquired by TripAdvisor)
Tripadvisor's problem isn't SEO, it's Tripadvisor.
They used to have a clean, easy to use site that was useful. As they've optimized and metricized the site to death, it's impossible to use. Harder to use == shittier reviews == lower visits.
Then they started engaging with you afterward. I was on vacation and looked for a restaurant near some I-95 town, and ended up getting spam emails about "Rate your stay in Stony Creek, VA!", "how was McDonald's in Lumberton, NC". Then I stopped using the app.
Personally I find booking .com and related sites to be so aggressive and downright manipulative (“40 people are viewing this right now!” “Your dates are super popular, 70% of hotels in this city are sold out!” Showing 5 hotels that are sold out first in order to make you feel desperate to find and book anything!) that I hate using it even though they often have the best prices. So I will do my hotel searches elsewhere and the only go to booking .com once I’ve already made a decision, to check it they have a lower price. See also agoda, trip .com, etc
At some point I gave up. It just stopped being worth it for me to save $10 here or $20 there for how much of a navigation PITA these sites are. I just stick to Kayak for booking most things now. It's simple, clean, and straight-forward and they do their best to de-bullshittify the manipulative fees that some airline portals use to artificially make the fare seem low.
Maybe I'm kidding myself but I just tune that all out. In the end I read some reviews, look at what we have (and pictures), and check the price. I've generally had good results which is why I still use them.
Buy a guidebook on Amazon. It’s worth it before a significant trip and saves time compared to sifting through dreck on the Web.
But if you’re in town for business and you happen to have a few extra minutes and you think “hey, what is there to see around here,” TripAdvisor works well enough.
TripAdvisor pivoted to booking on their site as the main revenue generator for some years now. But their SEO is still king to drive visits and they have very advances tools in that area.
This isn't accurate; they've been separate companies for years now. It's kind of a winding history but the TLDR is TripAdvisor started out as an independent startup. Was purchased by a large holding company, which also owned the Expedia brand (acquired from Microsoft). They then mashed all their travel companies together and spun the resulting behemoth out as "Expedia". A little later, Expedia split TripAdvisor back off into an independent company once again so it could focus on being an OTA.
So it's true they were linked at one time, but that's no longer the case. They're distinct businesses with no formal connection.
(Disclosure: I work for TripAdvisor as an engineer, though I wasn't present when all of that went on)
(Source: was in online travel related business at the time. Was the first to buy links form Matt at SeatGuru, later acquired by TripAdvisor)