Google Product Search is getting a
new name, Google Shopping, and a new business model where only merchants that
pay will be listed. It’s the first time Google will decommission a search
product that previously listed companies for free. The company
says
the change will improve the searcher experience, but it will also likely raise
new worries that Google may further cut free listings elsewhere.
“This is about delivering the best answers for people searching for products
and helping connect merchants with the right customers,” said Sameer
Samat, vice president of product management for Google Shopping, when
explaining that by moving to an all-paid model, Google believes it will have
better and more trustworthy data that will improve the shopping search
experience for its users.
Perhaps this will be so; perhaps not. We’ll only have a better idea when the
transformation is complete. The process begins now with experiments, launches
more fully in the summer and will take through the fall to finish in the
United States,
when the service should be formally renamed from Google Product Search to
Google Shopping.
Next year, the change to paid inclusion will happen outside the
US, Google
says. In some countries, Google Product Search has already been called Google
Shopping but without the paid listings model.
Starting Now: Experiments
Beginning today, Google will run a variety of experiments on Google.com, for
a small percentage of searchers at first, that merge listings from Google
Product Listing Ads and Google Product Search together. To understand better,
consider this “before” example:
You can see that Google has its traditional AdWords text ads above and to
the right of the main results. Also above are
Product
Listing Ads, which were
launched
at the end of 2010 and allow advertisers to show small images next to their
ads, as well as purchase on a CPA (cost per action/sale) basis, rather than the
more common CPC (cost per click) basis. Product Listing Ads sometimes appear to
the right of the main results, as well.
The screenshot also shows the “free” listings that Google provides, those
that come from Google crawling the web, as well as those from Google Product
Search. The listings from Google Product Search come from Google’s web crawl as
well as from data feeds that merchants send to Google.
In contrast, below is an example of how one of the new experiments may look:
Rather than the Product Listing Ads and Google Product Search results being
separate, both will be combined into a single Google Shopping box. Here’s
another example, with a close-up on the Google Shopping box:
The example below shows how, at times, only one product might appear to the
side of the main results:
Again, here’s a different example, with a close-up on the box:
Goodbye
Google Product Search & Free Listings
As said earlier, Google Product Search currently gets its listings from
Google crawling the web or by retailers submitting product data and feeds
through the
Google Merchant Center.
There has been no charge for either. Indeed, Google has never charged for being
in its shopping search engine since it
began
back in December 2002 and was called Froogle.
That’s ending. There’s no firm date on exactly when the free ride will be
over, other than it should happen by the fall of this year.
Merchants may continue to be listed within Google’s free web search results.
That’s not changing. But those wanting to appear in a dedicated shopping search
engine — and in the Google Shopping boxes that will appear as part of Google’s
regular results — will need to pay.
Hello Google Shopping & Paid Inclusion
The forthcoming Google Shopping will operate on what’s been known in the
search industry as a paid inclusion model. That’s where companies pay to be
listed but payment doesn’t guarantee that they’ll rank well for any particular
terms.
In particular, Google says advertisers will provide data feeds or create
product listings through Google AdWords, in campaigns that are set to run on
Google Shopping. It will work very similarly to how Product Listing Ads work
now. Merchants won’t bid on particular keywords but rather bid how much they’re
willing to pay, if their listings appear and get clicks or produce sales.
Getting a top ranking will depend on a combination of perceived relevance and
bid price.
As part of the changes, Google Shopping will incorporate
Google
Trusted Stores badges into the listings, for those merchants who
participate in the program. Google has already been
testing
the use of these within AdWords.
Google also says the new Google Shopping listings will be able to show if
merchants have any special deals or offers — these can also be sent within the
merchant’s data feed.
Product Listing Ads as a product will be phased out when Google Shopping
takes over, but Google says using the PLA system now is the best way for merchants
to prepare for the Google Shopping change. That’s why Google is offering two
incentives to get merchants going with them now, if they’re not already:
- All merchants that create
Product Listings Ads by August 15 will receive 10% credit for their total
PLA spend through the end of the year
- Existing Google Product
Search merchants will get a $100 AdWords credit if they fill out a form
before August 15
Google provides more details about this and the forthcoming transition
here. We’ll
also be following-up with more transition advice and details as they become
known.
Didn’t Google Hate Paid Inclusion?
The paid inclusion model will be familiar to many merchants, who know it’s
commonly used with other shopping search engines. But it’s new to Google. In
fact, it’s a model that Google once fought against, even to the degree of
characterizing it as evil. Those days are over. Google Shopping will becomes
the fourth “vertical” or topically-focused search engine from Google to use
paid inclusion.
Once
Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces “Paid Inclusion” is my column
from yesterday at our sister site
Marketing
Land. It explains the
history of Google’s past opposition to paid inclusion and its reversal over the
past year. Of that history, I’ll highlight this part of Google’s 2004 IPO
filing,
which specifically talked about paid inclusion being bad in terms of shopping
search:
Froogle [what's now called Google Product Search and will be
called Google Shopping] enables people to easily find products for sale online.
By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of our search
technology to a very specific task—locating stores that sell the items users
seek and pointing them directly to the web sites where they can shop. Froogle
users can sort results by price, specify a desired price range and view product
photos.
Froogle accepts data feeds directly from merchants to ensure that product
information is up-to-date and accurate. Most online merchants are also
automatically included in Froogle’s index of shopping sites.
Because we
do not charge merchants for inclusion in Froogle, our users can browse product
categories or conduct product searches with confidence that the results we
provide are relevant and unbiased.
I bolded the key part. Eight years ago, Google viewed paid inclusion in
general as some type of evil the company should avoid and in particular
something that could cause shopping search to have poor relevancy or be biased.
What happened to cause such a change?
Reversing Its Stance
For one, Google’s official line seems to be that it hasn’t changed its mind
about anything. That’s because it’s changing the definition of what paid
inclusion is, to effectively claim that it’s not doing it. This is the
statement I was sent after my column appeared yesterday:
Paid inclusion has historically been used to describe
results that the website owner paid to place, but which were not labelled
differently from organic search results. We are making it very clear to
users that there is a difference between these results for which Google may be
compensated by the providers, and our organic search results.
As I did yesterday, I’ll disagree again. Paid inclusion has been
historically used to describe when people pay to appear in a search engine’s
results but without any guarantee of prominent placement. What’s happening with
Google Shopping is classic, textbook paid inclusion. It matches up precisely
with the US Federal Trade Commission’s own
definition
of paid inclusion:
Paid inclusion can take many forms. Examples of paid
inclusion include programs where the only sites listed are those that have paid;
where paid sites are intermingled among non-paid sites; and where companies pay
to have their Web sites or URLs reviewed more quickly, or for more frequent
spidering of their Web sites or URLs, or for the review or inclusion of deeper
levels of their Web sites, than is the case with non-paid sites.
Again, I’ve bolded the key part, a part that defines exactly what’s going to
happen with Google Shopping.
The fact Google considered paid inclusion evil in the past is an
embarrassment that some will have a good chuckle about. But companies do change
stances. The bigger issue in all this is whether the shift is good for
searchers and publishers.
Paid Relationships Can Be Good
When it comes to searchers, Google’s view is that by having a paid relationship,
it can better ensure the quality of what it lists in Google Shopping.
“We believe a commercial relationship with partners is critical to ensuring
we receive high quality product data, and with better data we can build better
products,” Samat told me.
Today’s blog
post
from Google reflects the same view:
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.
A good example of the potential here is something we
covered
last November. Google had warned merchants in Google Product Search to include
tax and shipping costs in their feeds. But well past Google’s deadline,
merchants were still flouting those rules.
Potentially, those merchants risked being kicked out of Google Product
Search. But being a free service, it possible the merchants might come back in
another way. There was a low barrier to entry. That low barrier also means much
more has to be policed.
When payment is involved, it’s harder to be abusive. Merchants risk losing
their accounts, along with any trust built up to those accounts. In addition,
when they’re paying by the click or by the sale, there’s more incentive to
ensure listings are relevant.
But There Was No Other Way?
Still, this is an unprecedented move by Google. The company has
never eliminated a search product that had free listings and shifted to an
all-paid model.
I couldn’t think of any examples of this in the past, and Google confirmed
this was a first. At best, it offered that Boutiques.com —
purchased
in 2010 and
integrated into
Google Product Search in 2011 — had a similar pay-to-play model. But Boutiques.com
wasn’t an existing service that was shifted from free to fee.
For a company with such a long history of trying to be inclusive, it’s
shocking. It’s more so when
Bing
Shopping accepts free listings. Google couldn’t find a way to do what
Microsoft does?
“We’ve looked at a number of different aspects to approach this, but we have
to evolve our experience. We believe consumers have a higher expectation of
shopping online,” Samat said.
Will It Stay Comprehensive?
One thing I’ve generally loved about Google Product Search is that if I
couldn’t find some odd product on Amazon (which tends to be
a pseudo-shopping search engine for me), Google seemed able to ferret it
out. But with the change to a paid inclusion model, will the ability to get
into the nooks and crannies of the retail web be lost?
Google told me that it currently has tens of thousands of merchants listed
in Google Product Search for free. I asked if the company had any idea how that
might change when payment is required or if there would be an impact on
comprehensiveness?
“We really want all kinds of merchants to participate,” Samat said. But he
also said, ”It’s hard to speculate on how this will play out. Our
objective here is to deliver a better experience. We are doing a number of
things to help the users’ experience get better.”
Going Forward
In the end, Google is shifting to what’s been the industry standard when it
comes to shopping search, to have a paid inclusion program. The curious can
take a look
here
at SingleFeed for a rundown on who offers paid plans or
here
at CPC Strategy. Most shopping search engines do. Even Bing, which is listed as
being free, also does paid inclusion through a partnership with
Shopping.com,
saying
that doing this will increase visibility.
One thing about the change is that it will probably cause all the shopping
search engines out there to better disclose the paid relationships they have.
As I covered in my
column
yesterday, the FTC has seemed to ignore that some don’t have any disclosure at
all, as required. Google’s move has the potential to raise the bar here, and
that’s sorely needed.
For searchers, Google’s trying to find the balance between having
incredibly comprehensive results and the noise that can harm relevancy when
there’s too much junk and not enough signal, it seems. As I said, it remains to
see if they’ll get that balance right.
For publishers, there’s a whole lot of worry here. If Google can turn one
search product to an all-paid basis, nothing really prevents it from doing the
same for others. Could Google News only carry listings from publishers
that want to pay? Will Google Places,
already
just transformed into a part of the Google+ social network, be changed
to a pay-or-don’t play yellow pages-style model?
Even web search could be threatened. All the arguments about wanting to get
better data and filter out noise are just as applicable to web search. The main
reassuring thing here is that there’s little likelihood that Google
could get hundreds of millions of web sites to do paid inclusion at the risk of
not being listed. Pure paid inclusion works better in the world of vertical
search, where there are only thousands of companies you’re dealing with.
Meanwhile, with
Google
Play selling content, will Google eventually decide that Google Shopping
should make the next logical step and provide transactions, the way that Amazon
does? At some point, Google the search engine that is supposed to point to
destinations may turn into too much of a destination itself.
