It’s been a little over a year since Google Shopping transitioned to a paid model, and some consumers are not happy. On Wednesday, Consumer Watchdog filed a complaint with the FTC about Google Shopping display results, claiming they are “nothing more than ads that are highlighted based on what merchants bid to be there.” A study by the nonprofit, as well as an analysis by the Financial Times, found data to support the complaint.
But is that data reliable? Search Engine Land isn’t so sure. Neither survey compared results to competitors or documented their findings well. So our friends at Search Engine Land are doing their own test of Google, Nextag, Bing, PriceGrabber, and Shopzilla. Yesterday’s search for a toaster oven on these five major comparison shopping engines found that Google did return the best pricing options. However, it also concluded that shopping search has serious issues around consumer disclosure in general.
I’m curious to see how the next few tests will go (and glad I don’t count on Google or any other shopping search engine). How do you think Google Shopping will fare? Do you have a favored shopping search option?
