Google To Require Retailers To Pay To Be In Google Shopping Results

gambit3 writes "In a move to squeeze more cash out of its lucrative Web-search engine, Google is converting its free product-search service into a paid one. Online retailers will now have to bid to display their products on Google's Shopping site. Currently, retailers include their products for free by providing Google with certain data about the products. Google then ranks those products, such as cameras, by popularity and price. '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.'"

Comments

Calm down

[N1AK]

One of my biggest issues with Google shopping is the number of prices that aren't current and inability to tell legitimate new sites from frauds. If they can improve that while charging a marginal fee then I would accept that as a worthwhile deal. Ultimately if Google charges enough that competitive shops stop listing then it'll shoot them in the foot. Also, just about everyone in Google's listings appears to allow affiliate sites and or buyers to use cashback sites. Google would be effectively skimming off some of their profit margin that they are happy to give to others.

Google got worthless for some searches years ago

[GodfatherofSoul]

You look for anything that might be a product and you're going to be wading through pages of vendor sites. They should drop the shopping app altogether as it's already integrated with basic search.