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

Good while it lasted...

[raydobbs]

Well, that was a slightly useful tool when it worked... not so much now. Now I will just get a listing of who paid to be there, and who are sure to keep their prices fixed to one another.

Pay-to-Play v. Commercial Relationship

[Bob9113]

'We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date. Higher quality dataâ"whether itâ(TM)s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availabilityâ"should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for merchants.'

That is a fine explanation of why you want to have a formal relationship with the retailers that you include in your search engine. Of course, that has nothing to do with it being pay-to-play. The pay-to-play is the part that matters to your users. The quote above is clearly deflecting attention from the change from a search engine (motivated primarily to satisfy the user) to a shopping mall (motivated primarily to satisfy the retailer). That is the part that is significant to users.