How Evil Are Google's New Paid Shopping Search Results?
Photo: Forbes.com
Google announced today a change in the rule of engagement for the ‘inclusion’ of products in search results. From now on, if you see a picture of a product at the top of the page of search results, you can bet that the merchant paid to be there.
Up until now, Google has maintained a very clear “church and state” demarcation between ads and search results. If you search for a product, say “telescopes,” you will be returned a page with a tan “ad words” box at the top of the page with highlighted text ads as well as possibly some paid product listing ads with images. Then there will be “related searches” and the top, non-shopping result. Below that will be (unpaid) “Shopping results for telescopes illustrated by a prominent product, and beyond that the rest of the standard search results.
In the new regime, the large, tan premium ad words box will be reduced in height and directly below it will be a white box clearly marked “sponsored” with an image gallery of five products related to your search.
Not So Evil
On the one hand, if you see it from Google’s point of view, this is an attempt to “build delightful shopping experiences for consumers in close partnership with merchants.” The paid aspect of this will actually improve things for consumers, because “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.” This is a little like saying that therapy only works if you pay for it, but I see their point.
More Evil
From the consumers point of view, some amount of trust will be eroded by the new arrangement. As soon as consumers begin to question one thing, they begin to question everything. Google has introduced new features recently like Google Hotel Finder and Google Flight Search that are, in fact, incredibly useful. But if consumers feel that the results that are returned are not necessarily the best deals and are there for purely commercial reasons, they may begin to look suspiciously at all of the new structured data displays that Google is rolling out.
Really Evil
From the merchants point of view, this will increase the cost of selling through search. Even though the image gallery is clearly marked “sponsored,” the eye naturally goes there. If a customer is in a hurry and you see an image of what you want, they’re going to click it. If you’re a merchant and your results are halfway down the page (or, horrors, on the second page) your traffic is going to be reduced compared to what you might be getting presently. Beyond that, if pay-to-play really does shape purchase volumes, Google will position itself as a collector of a tithe on all commerce that flows through it. Think Amazon without the warehouse space.
I don’t want to make this sound like a bigger deal than it is, but it is clear that Google has to get the balance right both for consumers and merchants if they want to ramp up the monetization of their search results. Unlike Facebook, when people see ads on Google, they are almost always for what they are looking for. As Jon Mitchell writes in ReadWriteWeb, “By searching for a product, you’ve demonstrated a possible intent to buy it, so Google has extended its search results with a department store where merchants can sell it to you.” Let’s hope that Google keeps to their creed and minimizes evil while maximizing utility.
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