4 replies to this topic

[glyn]

That is my question.

I have the ability to add sites "for free" to Google products, which is the shopping side. That's great but who uses it? No-one can be bothered to flick the search options when using Google search, so where is Google products being used?

What are the worries? By adding all your products to a shopping section, this may give a handle on the commercial sites, which could affect the overall positioning in the search index, and tag up pages as commercial and thus have them shifted around the main index.

Google products is free. But with Google now building content sites with affiliate listings such as http://www.boutiques.com/. You know there are more to come, and you know that they will be listed nicely and get a good page rank!

Okay, a few things in there.

First, has anyone got some good real life stories on going down teh Google products route? Are there some independent stats on the use?

I have a view on this but reallyu want to see what other people are experiencing


<<<title spelling>>>

Glyn.

Edited by iamlost, 09 April 2011 - 12:11 PM.

[AbleReach]

I use G's "Shopping" search all the time, for a quick price check. I don't click through as often as I look.

[EGOL]

I assume that you are talking about the "shopping" results.

I see shopping results in a lot of the web SERPs that I sell in. They have to be getting a lot of clicks because they often have very good photos and prices displayed.

Also, some of my products are in the shopping results and I get traffic and sales from that source.

They are easy to use. Everyone should use them.

[iamlost]

Reminder to self: do not type directly into 'add reply' as it will be lost without recovery...forcing one to face memory loss and frustration...

For those interested in learning more about Google Merchant Center (replaces Google Base for 'products'):
* Google Merchant Center FAQ

* Google Merchant Center Help Articles

* Google Merchant Blog

* Google Merchant Center Help Forum

* Google Product Search (beta)

Whether Google Product Search will gain momentum or be withdrawn remains unanswered. However, for certain query terms (primarily brand specific) (and apparently currently restricted to google.com) Merchant Center information replaces Google Image results in universal search.
Example:
Query [ timberland boots ] on google.ca returns brand images via Google Images:
 g_ca_images.png   331.54K   37 downloads

The same query on google.com returns brand images plus descriptions plus ratings plus prices plus site links plus site name via Google Merchant Center:
 g_com_merchant.png   327.8K   38 downloads

[tam]

I use it lots too, mostly to compare prices rather than find a product.

Results are also pulled from the 'shopping' page to the main results so if you're selling products people search for by name being in the shopping results can mean that you in the top 3 results position with an eye catching picture next to your listing. For example on one site I work on, they are 7th in the main results for a specific product, but get a no. 1 listing on the shopping insert that appears at the top of the results page.

It's not like it's a massive amount of work either. Set up a script to update an xml file when you edit your products, point google at the xml file and you're basically done. I'm sure you can spend time SEOing it a bit but most of your product data will have already had that done. For the amount of effort it's definitely worth giving it ago.