Who Is Shaping Search Engine Results in the Wine Industry? A Cross-Country Analysis

According to the recent perspective of inbound marketing (Halligan e Shah 2014), the aim of marketing should be to gain the interest of potential customers and draw them to the company website, rather than to send out communication to customers and wait for their reaction. However, competing on the web to appear early in search results can prove to be difficult. Moreover, depending on the industry and country, different players and typologies of websites might influence the competitive online environment (Peterson & Merino 2003; Huang, Lurie & Mitra 2009; Lemon & Verhoef 2016). This research aims at mapping the role of different players in the wine industry in different countries when it comes to organic search results. In particular, through online research and with a cross-country perspective, it has the aim of answering the following questions: What are the categories of players defining the online competitive arena in organic search marketing results for wines in different countries? Do these categories of players vary depending on the wine type and country?