Comments on: Google Product Search replaces Video on the home page

By: omegaswitch

omegaswitch — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:03:26 +0000

Hi Ken,
What is your personal opinion on unsolicited email (e.g. spam)? Do you think it is ethically sound and a good business practice for companies to send spam if it helps them reach their target audience?
Looking forward to your reply,
Omegaswitch

By: David Villacreses

David Villacreses — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:38:31 +0000

Interesting it seems like the FROOGLE business is getting in the right direction now for Google Team. Good for them!
Ebay really needs a competitor on its size!
Maurice V
http://www.BullionHost.com/webhosting.html

By: Ken McCarthy

Ken McCarthy — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:08:55 +0000

The new Google Product Search is indeed based on Froogle.
Froogle was very weak for a variety of reasons which is why Google took it off the home page. That it’s back and much improved is significant.
As one poster pointed out, many people already start their product searches using regular Google, and eBay and Yahoo stores listings often home up high in the rankings – for now.
Do you really think that’s going to continue once Google gets serious about its Product Search service? Also, when Froogle was launched there was no Google Checkout. BIG difference.
Am I the only one who sees where this is headed?
Google’s already got the search traffic, right? And it monetizes it with AdWords. Coming up with new monetization methods has not proven to be easy, but monetize they must if they’re going to keep growing (something they have to do just to survive.)
So where is this new revenue going to come from?
In it’s typical (r)evolutionary way, Google’s going to continue to develop Product Search to the point that instead of pointing people to eBay, they’re going to point them to products listed on Google instead.
Google is after the check out money. That’s the holy grail here. A piece of every online sale that takes place as a result of a Google search.
Right now Google is “leaking” that revenue away to eBay and PayPal. Anyone who thinks that Google is going to cooperate with eBay by accepting PayPal hasn’t been paying attention. “Coopetition” is not the name of the game in the real world. Not when the stakes are this high and one party thinks it can triumph over the other.
Look, eBay is huge and has huge momentum. Google is not going to eliminate eBay, but it is going to continuously nibble at its flank.
Revenue-wise,it’s a one way street because eBay has no way to take customers from Google. Very bad for eBay because for a company its size, it’s either grow or die.
eBay has run out of new tricks and a deadly serious competitor is eying its turf. Bad news all around for eBay.
Since January 2005, Google’s value as a company has gone to the moon. eBay’s has been stagnant.
This chart makes what’s happening clear.
I repeat: I’d hate to be eBay when Google achieves its goal of closing the search-to-sale loop.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s=EBAY&l=off&z=m&q=l&c=goog

By: GlowPaint

GlowPaint — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:03:52 +0000

Hi Ken
Not available in Australia yet. I hope it don’t take to long. By what i can see it’s only available in the US and UK.
Have fun
Paul H

By: Lisa Suttora - WhatDoISell.com

Lisa Suttora - WhatDoISell.com — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:32:27 +0000

Hi Ken,
It will be interesting to see what Google does with this. Currently you can optimize your eBay store and listings descriptions to get them better search engine indexing (on all search engines, not just Google). In fact, many eBay sellers see a considerable percentage of their traffic coming in from the search engines – which means buyers are starting at SE’s first anyway (rather than going through eBay’s search engine.) But the sale is going through PayPal.
So it will be interesting to see if Google is heading in the direction of building a comparison shopping site with Google checkout or if there are plans to build an entire ecommerce marketplace integrated with Google checkout.
Lisa

By: Julie R. Bechthold

Julie R. Bechthold — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:52:52 +0000

Hi Ken,
I really appreciate your note about the Google products change. It made me go take a look and below is what I found out for Yahoo! store owners.
If you are a Yahoo! store owner, and have this feature enabled on the back-end of your store under “Search Engines”, then Yahoo! will automatically send your ‘catalog’ to Google products whenever you re-publish your store.
So whenever you add new products to the store, or change existing ones, Yahoo forwards an XML file of all of your products to Google.
Pretty nifty bonus for Yahoo store owners.
Thanks again Ken,
Juile R. Bechthold
Great Eagle Tech
GPS Systems at Great Prices and FREE SHIPPING!

By: GlowPaint

GlowPaint — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:33:59 +0000

I love Google
Google loves websites and their owners who know SEO…
So from the comments above, Is this new old idea worth using. Is the Google fees better than Paypal and ebay?
If I was thinking about selling my products on ebay, would it be just as good, or better to use Google Products?
Does anyone know how many individuals and businesses used froogle or will use this new product?
Trying to understand the benefits of all of Googles offerings, can get overwhelming.
Thanks in advance for any information supplied

By: Russell Wright

Russell Wright — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:02:54 +0000

Funny you should mention this. We were just adding this to our “Vertical Market Intelligence” screen as a new source of data to help folks determine the “product price range” in a theme or category. When you cross reference this with how many products have actually sold on e-bay you get a pretty good idea if the product is a “trading up” market” or a drop-ship market.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:17:11 +0000

Ken,
I don’t think this is a problem for the folks at Ebay, on the contrary, many of their listings show up regularly in Products search. As long as the listings are optimized for the keywords that are searched on, the listings themselves would be indexed. And regarding Google Checkout, well it is probably about time that Ebay start accepting Google Checkout. Competition never hurts the consumer.

By: Luxury Diamond Ring

Luxury Diamond Ring — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:05:30 +0000

Hi Ken, yes we have seen this in the UK for a while now; but to be honest with you I did not really take special notice of it. This is due to the fact that I have lost track of all the Google initiatives. For me, they just seem too many to catch-up with as I don’t need all of them. However, with a new jewelry site that I manage, the PoshWoman, I guess it will be ideal and great to list our products there.
Btw, Peter (Peter – Software Marketing Secrets), yes I sometimes do that. iGoogle and the classic homepage give you different subcategories and “Video” is still maintained in iGoogle as against “Products” in the Classic Home.