Did you know that Google is switching its Shopping Search Engine from ‘Free and Paid’ to ‘entirely Paid’ by this October?
Although right now, this major search engine is charging no cost for product placement in its search results except the sponsored listings that appear at the top of the result pages and run by other means of advertising (PPC).
In May this year, Google declared to ‘revise’ its product search processes, and now the company has cleared its intention to completely go with ‘paid model’.
It has been made clear that the paid placement transformation would be in effect by fall this year in the U.S. However, the rest part of the world would be updating by the next year.
“This change is expected to apply on search results that appear on google.com/shopping, not affecting Google organic and other results. The result would still be based on the relevancy, with the ‘bidding’ being an added factor to the algorithm”, said the Google spokesperson.
This means Google would count relevancy and bidding as the major factor of ranking determination for products among its hundreds others, just like its AdWords advertising pattern. The facility to market special offers would also be there with this update.
Google also clarified that retailers will not have to pay money just for the listing of their products. They can select any type of placement methods like pay per click, or pay per purchase, etc. The technology giant’s move has certainly augmented the anxiety of sellers, especially small merchants who have been running their businesses on Google Shopping ‘free of cost’, and now they would have to pay for the same.
Sameer Samat the vice president of product management for Google Shopping was of the opinion that “This is about delivering the best answers for people searching for products and helping connect merchants with the right customers.”
He also explained that Google is of the opinion that it will be able to extract more trustworthy and better data which in turn will ensure an improved search experience for the users of the search engine.
The company confirmed that it is trying to improve its product search results by going paid. If we would provide greater quality product results, buyers would prefer Google shopping as their primary shop platform, rather than Amazon, said the Google representative.
