Google Smoogle

[ecommerceprofit]

Why is it that Amazon (and sometimes the other big name stores) show up in the shopping results most of the time? Why don't they randomize their results more? No need to refer me to other threads...I've read them...just an observation

Also, why is it that Google shows the same web sites over and over in results? Say you are looking for a specific widget...sometimes the same widget will show up twice in search results for the same store...they give a better ranking to old time stores. Hey...I'm not whining - that's life...but have they ever thought about what new web stores are up against in 2011? Hello...get it? Google is mainly about links - you must have links - it's almost impossible these days to get links - at least it is much harder than say 2005...the old stores built up links over the years but that is not smart on Google's part...the new guys, who may have a better site/content, will be at a disadvantage since it will be super hard to get links naturally or otherwise.

Wake up Google. I'm waiting for the old time merchants to get all angry with me. You have an established business and my guess Google does not want the established businesses angry with them for some reason.

I still love Google in many ways - others not so much - but I hope they think beyond their old algorithms...

[jwolthuis]

Question #1: Advertising budget.

Question #2: Agree. Two sequential links leading to the same website? Bravo, Google.

You'd think thay'd monitor that internally, but then refer to the answer to Q #1.

[ecommerceprofit]

Good point - but you would think that if these companies did not get such a free ride in organic results that they would be forced to spend more money in advertising?

In fact, with a higher variety of web sites to share better search positions, these new stores soon would "taste" success. Like a drug, smaller companies would become addicted to the Google machine. Wow! the Internet is great - look at all of this free money (50K would seem like heaven) - they quit their job and/or expand their little empire and take lots of that money and reinvest it in Google ads.

Then their friends and family would see how successful they are and they give e-commerce a whirl too. The big companies like Amazon and Target may not be happy but would they stop advertising? I don't think so.

Not to mention...it's like China - I'm not being political but making a little point. The U.S. sends tons of money and jobs to China. Ok...so now China is huge - they build up their military, infrastructure while the U.S. declines...now take that thought to Google. Do I search Google for products? Not so much anymore - I go directly to Amazon. Even Target now - they are my competitors sure...but as a consumer this is how I search - Walmart - other big sites - Google is shooting itself in the foot.

Another example - Netscape used to promote all of the search engines back in 1994 and 1995 - big mistake - Yahoo paying Google to be their search engine - big mistake.

[tangor]

these new stores soon would "taste" success. Like a drug, smaller companies would become addicted to the Google machine

Not true... the smaller companies are ALREADY addicted, they just don't know how much until their spend exceeds ability. Google is all about money. They like the guarantee of big bucks from big budgets but they really love all the little guys spending...

Ever been to a casino? Every once-in-a-while a "big guy" (Hollowood [sic] or other) type drops $100k one time but it is the unwashed masses playing slots or penny ante that fills their bottom line. Like a casino only the house wins... and that is Google.

[buckworks]

Like a casino only the house wins... and that is Google.

Wrong.

For Google to win, the advertisers have to win too.

Google has little to gain from advertisers who spend themselves into oblivion then have to stop their ads. Google will make the most money by far from advertisers who have well-managed AdWords campaigns that turn a profit and run for a long time.

For just about any business outside the wedding sector, the big profits are in the repeat customers, and AdWords is no exception.

[dpd1]

As far as ranking, I honestly don't have that big an issue. I don't use any SEO 'techniques' to help me, besides just adding a lot of cool stuff to my site. It seems to work. For a nobody, I do OK in ranking. However... They're advertising is a different story. That has become pretty much worthless, due to them allowing people to abuse the crap out of it, to the point where you could search for a duck and get 10 sites popping up with mesothelioma ads. I also think they haven't been aggressive enough in just flat out denying the link farms, worthless directories, and various other lazy knucklehead, get rich quick idiots, that are like a plague now. I was searching for something the other day, and I think I went through 10 links of link farm crap, before I gave up. With all the money and resources they have, there should just be cubicles of people sitting there all day, going through all that and sending it to the back of the bus.

[Rajeev mahto]

I do agree

[CPC_Andrew]

@ecommerceprofit as a response to your original question, Google shows the big boys higher in most cases because customers have more brand recognition and better customer experience with those companies. This is not a rule that is always true, but one that Google weighs in an equation.

Seller X that I have no idea how their business runs and their success rate, or Amazon, Best Buy, Target, or Sams Club?

Needless to say, it's not "Why does Google list the big boys ahead of me?" it should be "How do I improve my ranking?"

There's tricks on how to do that. Every month quality data becomes more of the core to Google Shopping's business model. If you include higher quality data than a competitor of equal size who has been listing on Google Shopping for the same time as you, you will on average get more traffic than them.

In four days Google Shopping will start requiring MPNs and Brand or UPCs and Brand for all non-apparel / non-custom made items.

More info: [google.com...]

[seroundtable.com...]

If you haven't begun the process of acquiring these identifiers for your products you need to start now, or Google will reject those items from being listed on Google Shopping.

There's other ways to increase traffic as well. One is to optimize your product_type attribute. If you're interested here's the thread where I explain it: [webmasterworld.com...]

It's the 5th reply down. We've optimized product_type columns and seen increases of over 100% in traffic. While this is not normal it can really give your Google Shopping traffic a boost.

On top of that if you are a soft goods retailer keywords are extremely important. It's all about thinking about how your consumer searches, researching those keywords in your Analytics platform, and prioritizing them in your product titles and descriptions. You can get a huge lift from putting effort into this.

[Bewenched]

Regarding Google requiring the mpn and/or upc I think google is going to starting relating items together this way.

it's the only reason they would need that data.

Maybe their own comparison engine?

[ecommerceprofit]

CPC_Andrew I mostly disagree with you. You give excellent information but I started this discussion about Google's macro philosophy rather than the mundane details of SEO.

I agree that these large stores do have better experiences on the whole - low prices - generous return policies and such but as you stated this is always not true. Google should put this into their equation for sure but should dilute the big store algorithm knob importance more.

What Google is doing is making the Internet a little too bland - randomizing more by allowing smaller sites in would be good. For whom?

1) Google (read my first post about them shooting themselves in the foot,

2) my new site and other new sites...again I direct you to my first post where I discuss how the 2011 small players can never equal 2005 small players because links are super hard to get now, and

3) lastly they are hurting the end user with bland results...same stuff...duplicate web site links, etc.

I've been on both sides...owning a large e-commerce company that I sold and now being small again...it is mostly about links. I am competing against companies that were given links a long time ago - they enjoy the easy money through organic listings - now the world has discovered the Internet (Facebook generation) - there are a ton of new merchants out there all competing for the same links which is just about none - the old companies get fat enjoying free money (organic listings)...while the new companies have no way of joining the fun. Read my first post on why this hurts Google.

Again, I am not crying...I benefited from Google's free organic listings since they were created in 1998 with my old company. I'm working on all the SEO garbage using white hat techniques but I think as an overall "philosophy" Google needs to try a new paradigm to replace their decade plus old algorithm.

[votrechien]

It's the same reason why more times than not Wikipedia is the first page shown when Googling topic- because more times than not, I want the Wikipedia page for that topic.

The big boys being shown for the big searches isn't anything new to fundamental business practices. Nearly every business book written in the past 100 years (well before the internet) will teach you that if you're a small company and you want to succeed, you must exploit a niche. And the same is true for search- it's still easy to rank well for niche search terms.

[ecommerceprofit]

I give up on the SEO detail people - read my past posts over and over to understand.