Google Shopping (Was Product Search) Shifting To Relevance and Pay-To-Rank

[engine]

Google Shopping (Was Product Search) Shifting To Relevance and Pay-To-Rank [googlecommerce.blogspot.co.uk]

First, we are starting to transition Google Product Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Product Listing Ads. This new product discovery experience will be called Google Shopping and the transition will be complete this fall. We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date. Higher quality data—whether it’s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availability—should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for merchants.

We’re giving merchants a few months to transition to this new model, and we’re also offering some incentives:

All merchants who create Product Listing Ads by August 15, 2012 will automatically receive a monthly credit for 10% of their total Product Listing Ad spend through the end of 2012; and
Existing Google Product Search merchants can receive $100 AdWords credit toward Product Listing Ads if they fill out a form before August 15, 2012.

To learn more and get started merchants can visit: www.google.com/ads/shopping

Ranking in Google Shopping, when the full transition is complete this fall, will be based on a combination of relevance and bid price--just like Product Listing Ads today. This will give merchants greater control over where their products appear on Google Shopping. Over time they will also have the opportunity to market special offers such as “30% off all refracting telescopes.”

[netmeg]

This is pretty big if you're in ecommerce. Some of my clients are going to be ... surprised.

[engine]

Yes, and I know some people that are going to be surprised and disappointed.

[jwolthuis]

Google uses the term "transition", but it appears they are simply dropping "Google Product Search" (the old Froogle).

The replacement, "AdWords Product Listing Ads", has already been available for at least a year, but probably not heavily promoted.

And I'm confused about this "trusted stores" push. What does G have to gain by creating yet another "trusted seal" provider? Just another link-in to tie to AdWords?

[dvduval]

If I read correctly, it sounds like a transition from search engine to paid placements. Organic results are becoming less and less a part of their mission.

[AndyA]

Coming soon?

"First, we are starting to transition Google Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Ads."

[bobsc]

I hope Google goes bankrupt.

[Bewenched]

Great, now they're going to charge for something that has been free for a very long time. Not that it really performed that well anyway.

If it's a pay per click then it's doomed, if it's pay for performance then possibly we'd be interested in using it, else amazon and the big players are just going to hammer any smaller businesses or everyone will have to raise prices just to compete.

Google PPC never pays off for ecommerce unless you are VERY specialized.

[outland88]

I wonder if this is an indicator Adwords is slipping or will this just create a new foothold for "brands" in the results. Probably a little bit of both.

[Marshall]

In addition, merchants who want to stand out from the crowd can choose to participate in our new Google Trusted Stores program. Google Trusted Stores is a badge for e-commerce sites which gives users background on merchants—whatever their size—including ratings for on-time shipping and customer service. Google stands behind merchants that have earned the Google Trusted Stores badge with a $1,000 lifetime purchase protection guarantee per shopper.

Does this mean they want to become the ultimate authority one who is reliable? Or is this just another way to mine data.

Marshall

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google 2001

We have no plans for a paid inclusion program. As we’ve stated in the past, our search results represent our editorial integrity

Google 2004 statement included with IPO filing

Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating.

Google 2012

Now that we've shot down many competing affiliate sites, pay us.

Now remind me, why do we all just give Google our content to monetize for free? Google has no content without ours.

[leccrin]

Google uses the term "transition", but it appears they are simply dropping "Google Product Search" (the old Froogle).

The replacement, "AdWords Product Listing Ads", has already been available for at least a year, but probably not heavily promoted.

[edited by: goodroi at 1:59 am (utc) on Jun 1, 2012]
[edit reason] Please no links or keywords [/edit]

[trinorthlighting]

So google is going to become another shopping.com.....

[shri]

I assume this is all US only and international merchants will have to wait a year or two?

Does anyone know what the roll out will look like across the world?

[Marshall]

What burns me the most is without us, Google would have no business. They use our content to make money as they have no original content to contribute. And now they want to charge us a fee. Do no evil my arse.

Marshall

[Martin Ice Web]

Now this all gives a sense.
Destroy all ecom with penguin, push them to adsense and now push them to google shopping experience <- Ha, lol. And while it´s CPC based ( and not just CPC but CPC + Ranking charge ) this will not be effective for ecom.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

They use our content to make money as they have no original content to contribute. And now they want to charge us a fee. Do no evil my arse.

Bingo.

[jskrewson]

I have to admit, I'm saddened by this too. What really gets me is what Google is doing to the Internet. They play a stewardship role in defining the direction of the Internet. This is a role that should be done in the most ethical manner possible. Originally, the "do no evil" mantra was an acknowledgement that they understood the heavy responsibility of their stewardship.

Somewhere along the way, the owners lost sight of their responsibility. I hate to say it, but it makes you wonder if there should be a governing body controlled search engine that ensures a more democratic Internet can exist and thrive, instead of an Internet for the big brands and the biggest spenders.

I miss the idea of the Internet as a level playing field where everyone had an opportunity to have their voice heard. What happened to that, dear Google?

[Marshall]

Related story

Google kills free clicks [internetretailer.com]

Marshall

[outland88]

That's a excellent article Marshall especially if you read the links. If you read between the lines they are changing the way people shop on Google under the guise of creating a better user experience. Bottom line ditch the “small timer” and solidify our position with the brands to deal with Facebook and any other competition.

[ponyboy96]

Can anyone honestly say this surprises them? Once a company goes public, greed takes over and everything that made them what they are goes out the window.

My predictions:
Google Analytics will charge
GWT will charge or be a Google Analytics tie in
Facebook will go to a paid model of some sort


Honestly, I can't say that I blame them for wanting to make some money off of this. I think most of us just have a bad taste in our mouths from everything else they've hit us with all at once. This with the latest updates has severely hammer most ecom businesses.

[Leosghost]

The surprise is only that it took them this long to do it..

[diberry]

Honestly, I can't say that I blame them for wanting to make some money off of this.

They were already making more money than God. The whole thing with going public is that it becomes all about profits at that point. You're not dealing with investors who maybe love what you do and want to make money, but also want to preserve your corporate integrity. Stockholders just want the price to go up and up forever. They're not savvy, aware or interested about the fact that sometimes what you have to do to keep boosting those stock prices can destroy your brand over time.

Not that this is going to destroy Google's brand. But I do wonder what the user experience will be like, though. Google's saying it'll be a combination of bidding for placement and other metrics, which sounds to me like if they think your website is skeevy looking, you'll have to pay more for the top position than someone else would... but what if a skeevy website is willing to do that? Won't that turn shoppers off to Products as a whole? Or is Google going to not let them near the top no matter what they paid, in which case that would be massively anti-competitive if anyone can prove it?

We should throw together some skeevy sites, take up a collection, and bid those things to the top. :D

[Bewenched]

I will ONLY pay for clicks that result in sales.

A PPC model will cost most retailers too much money... too much click fraud.

[trinorthlighting]

Bing still has free shopping. We just joined up. Very similar to google.

I am personally upset with google. We are dropping analytics off of our site today and getting rid of the powered by google search boxes. It is time for webmasters to start promoting other search engines on our web pages instead of google.

We will not pay for their service, there is too much click fraud and google just got very greedy. First Adwords showed up above natural results, now add to it paid shopping results. Google is slowly converting their first page of the search engine results into paid advertisements.

With the free version of shopping results gone, sellers will pull out and move to other places listing products. Eventually the users will follow as well and google shopping will dry up like eBay or shopping.com did.

[Cancellara]

Sooner or later Google will take all of us out of business ... once we are all gone ... well, Google is gone ... what goes around comes around ...

[Digmen1]

There are people talking about dropping Google on other forums as well.

Do no evil... until they want more money.

I will start using Bing as my search engine from tomorrow.

[diberry]

I started using Bing for search a year ago. I also started putting EVERYTHING in the Bing bar - like, normally I start typing URLs I know in the URL window, but now I type them into Bing so that Bing can collect more data about my searching. I know it's less than a drop in a bucket, but hey.

[CPC_Andrew]

@trinorthlighting Bing Shopping has a partnership with Shopping.com so if they can they'll show a paid listing at all costs.

One thing to consider here is the affiliates and crappy sites that get thrown up, pasted together with a shopping cart and start submitting their products to Google. Many of those guys will be left out of the loop here. Since they won't be able to provide a satisfactory user experience (weighted in the new Google Shopping SERPS) nor will they want to pay for and manage traffic to their stores, there will potentially be a greater opportunity in terms of sales volume for merchants with good standing who get in front of this opportunity.

Google Shopping is becoming another shopping.com, the PLA program is exactly like a paid comparison shopping engine. Bids can be based through identifiers in the feed, commonly product, brand and category, though you can optimize bids by condition and other attributes. It will not be a keyword or ad-copy run ad channel. So be weary if you have a SEM firm who's eager to jump in here.

If they don't have experience with data feeds or bidding at the product level you're going to be in for a bumpy ride...

[jwurunner]

Yet another way to restrict and hold down the small eCommerce sites, many of which have been around longer than google. We have 10,000 skus in google product search. We could never bid on all of them, the conversion rates for adwords is poor enough I can only imagine how this will go.

So basically google wants only the deep pocket big box sites in their google shopping. They are the only companies that will fill out google shopping. What made google product search different than all the other CSE sites was the variety of merchants.

Oh well, just another way for google to decimate the small guy. With the pengiun update most industry sites in the top 20 result were replaced with less relevant big box site results.

Time to change all search to bing. By the time the FTC realizes what has happened with the restraint of trade caused by google, it will be too late.