Updates to Product Listing Ads and Google Shopping

Anne Garcia - August 6, 2012

Google is in the midst of completing its transition from Google Merchant to Google Shopping and has made numerous changes from the old, free-click model to the new paid platform. Google is now showing results on the right hand side of the search engine results page (SERP) with mutiple Product Listing Ads (PLA) from Google shopping results in the same row. In the past, PLAs were stacked one on top of each other, as previously shown here.

Once the searcher clicks on the link to shop for the specific item on Google, the searcher is taken to a Google Shopping page where the item is categorized by most popular. Another feature to note is that Google tells the user how many nearby stores have the item in stock. Google uses the searcher’s location to find nearby Google Places that have the item in stock.

From there, when applicable, Google will give the user the option to shop by brand, type or by feature. In the example of the query of a digital camera, Google showed the user various digital camera brands, types of digital cameras, and different resolution options.

In addition, at the bottom of the SERP, the search engine has added the following disclaimer: Google is compensated by some of these merchants. Payment is one of several factors used to rank these results. Tax and shipping costs are estimates.
It will be interesting to see what other changes the new Google Shopping paid platform will have before its full transition by the fall.