Google to Target "Bad Merchants"

[netmeg]

Danny reported on a discussion at SXSW regarding Google working on an algorithm to find and demote "bad merchants". They don't give any specifics of course, but the general feeling is to look for signals beyond reviews, because there are so many fake reviews.

Matt Cutts says:

We have a potential launch later this year, maybe a little bit sooner, looking at the quality of merchants and whether we can do a better job on that, because we don’t want low quality experience merchants to be ranking in the search results.

Article here.

[searchengineland.com...]

Heads up.

[zeus]

Now this coming update makes it all clear what has happen the last years, it really is about money now. We will see a lot of stores get bad rankings and see more org, edu, gov ...sites come to the front be cause with those sites there is no money to be made.

[snickles121]

Will Google be demoting themselves first because after ordering a product from Google Offers in January and never gettihg my product I ordered, Google has yet to refund my money even after I filed a complaint with them and after they said they would refund my cash and look into the matter.

They should practice what they preach.

[mihomes]

Will Google be demoting themselves first because after ordering a product from Google Offers in January and never gettihg my product I ordered, Google has yet to refund my money even after I filed a complaint with them and after they said they would refund my cash and look into the matter.

They should practice what they preach.

Hahaha... I am getting a good laugh at that one right now!

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Since Google has access to all recordings made by Google glass(es) they may very well be planning to review individual stores/sites from a customer point of view, literally.

[mihomes]

Are you serious or joking about that lol? Honestly I would never think that could be true, but anymore I just don't know what is next.

[Leosghost]

They do have access to all that anyones Google Glass(es) see / will see..and they do already send photographers to take pics of the insides of your B&M stores ( if you ask )..so ..maybe they will just no longer wait for you to ask..or make "accepting customers wearing Google Glass(es)" part of the terms for being a "Google trusted merchant/store"..

They do say that they can change their side of the applicable TOS at any time..

After all ..they once said there would not be ads on SERPs..

[sandyallainseo]

This is direct warning to merchants, who offer low levels of service, to be ready to face a possible downgrade in rankings. A dip in rankings will affect sales, traffic and profitability of the online merchants. Simple as that :D

[blend27]

I wouldn't buy cat litter from an online store if I knew that my info will be shared with Goog. But it's just me.

To me it is just another "Trusted Seal" program. but you pay with your customers Data and then your customer has to go to Goog to give their data to Goog.(sign up to review). Data Collection....

I bet if an average consumer asked a question: Would You prefer to buy online from A Google Trusted Store vs. one with out the Seal?, the answer would be "I don't care as long as I get my stuff". But by slapping that extra Icon/Definition, or whatever, next to the Stores link, Goog entices the searcher to do more of so called "research", and guess where? Yeeey, more Ads to show!

Goog could care less if the Pajamas you ordered from "Dorothy's Cheap Linens and Buttons" outlet was delivered all wrinkled up, missing a shiny button and 2 days late for the South Hill annual outing, as long as you click on some Ads or buy some Ads...

Oh, and perfect timing too... [consumerist.com...]

[zeus]

As said the future of the 1-3 pages on google will be newspapers, .edu , .gov ,research, non profit, ... even when you search for products, im not sure but I already see that slowly for some searches. I dont own any ecommerce site, but that would really get me thinking about Yahoo, Bing, Duckduckgo

[Bewenched]

This is direct warning to merchants, who offer low levels of service, to be ready to face a possible downgrade in rankings. A dip in rankings will affect sales, traffic and profitability of the online merchants. Simple as that

I'm sure it's a bit more complex than that. How is google to know who is good and who is bad.

Most reputable sites will not be sharing customer information with Google. So where are they going to get their information? ResellerRatings? bah .. that site can be gamed just like the others... the BBB ? bah .. as long as a company responds to bbb complaints they maintain their A+ rating.

So where will they get their data? Google Checkout? well ... maybe 1 out of 200 sales on our site are Google Checkout so that's not a good slice of data.

[kanetrain]

This is like Nickleback judging a songwriting contest...

Google is horrible at ecommerce. Every attempt they've made to sell direct to customers (servers, phones) has had major issues and really bad customer service.

Also, there are still major issues with Google trusted stores (doesn't work with Yahoo stores, or many other ecommerce platforms, doesn't work with downloadable goods, etc. etc. The list goes on). They really shouldn't use Trusted Stores as any kind of indicator until it actually works correctly and works with all major platforms.