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Search Within Search: More Costs For Those Paying Google’s Bills
By dave_pasternack | March 24, 2008
The New York Times’ Saul Hansell wrote a good article on Google’s “Search Within Search,” a new (and largely unwelcome) feature which invites users to inspect information on Google SERPs instead of burrowing into the target site itself. The result is that users will spend more time on Google and at the same time be exposed to more competing advertisements likely to derail them from their original destination. According to the article, several large e-tailers (including Amazon.com) have already complained that the searches that Google defeat the purpose of their own internal search routines, which in Amazon’s case are highly personalized. Others, including Best Buy, seem to have no problem at all with it.
Google is walking a tightrope on this one. Sure, only a small percentage of user traffic may be diverted to competitor’s sites via PPC ads on secondary SERPs, but this traffic may be highly profitable. Brand owners seeking to stem the loss of this traffic must now reserve space on the secondary SERP, which adds costs to their marketing campaigns. Search Within Search might benefit a few low-end e-tailers with crude internal search implementations, but effectively penalizes sophisiticated e-tailers who should be rewarded, not penalized, for investing in their own services. Longer-term, wouldn’t it be nice if Google occasionally asked the marketers who pay its bills if new features hurt or help them before it springs something like this on them?
Topics: I'm Mad as Hell and I'm Not Clicking on It Anymore, Search Engine Marketing |
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