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FoxAndFish
Posts: 1585
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 Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 6:19 am Post subject: |
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| lastade-designs wrote: | In this article, http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y12/m08/i10/s05, I found this quote:
Google's #1 stated intention with this change (and even the title of their blog post announcing it), is building a better shopping experience for consumers. |
Of course Google said that. What else can they say? They are violating their core principle of not charging for search, which has been in place for 14 years. From the 1998 research project by Google founders Page and Brin at http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html : "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." From Google's 2004 SEC filing for the IPO at http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm#toc59330_1 : "Our search results are...unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating....We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see....Because we do not charge merchants for inclusion...our users can browse product categories or conduct product searches with confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased."
So how do you put lipstick on that pig? By saying things like "building a better shopping experience" and "This will give merchants greater control over where their products appear" and "Google Shopping will empower businesses of all sizes to compete effectively." It's all there in the May 31 announcement at http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/05/building-better-shopping-experience.html . And it's not even a masterful PR job, it's clumsy and nonsensical. Their entire rationale for charging for search is to keep the listings up-to-date. Really. Old search was "broken"...users want "more." So Google fixed that by charging money. All the "benefits" they claim for the new paid inclusion...easy product research, product/price comparison, direct connection with merchants...already exist in the current free Google Product Search. Lastade, remember when you said in http://community.ecrater.com/viewtopic.php?t=31295 : "I don't like that guy in the interview" ? The guy trying to sell you a "better shopping experience" is the guy you don't like.
Every time a corporation changes something for their benefit, it is positioned as a consumer benefit. Credit cards make their statements more impenetrable so as to trap consumers into fees, they say "We've made our statement easier to read for you." Detergent manufacturers make their product smaller, they put on the label "Fresh new scent" so you don't notice the size. Food manufacturers put cheaper, more non-nutritious ingredients in their product, they say "New and improved." Google is doing the same thing, b/c it cannot come out and say: We need more money and now we're charging users for a service that had been free. This is not about a "better shopping experience" for consumers. It's about more money for Google. |
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 9:09 am Post subject: |
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Is it my thinking or did google start to change and became less people focused and more money focused when they started hiring ex-ebay people to come and help them? Not sure if it was intentional (hiring them so they could figure out how to make more money) or those ex-ebay employees came with the ebay mindset of lets screw our customers as best we can so we can retire filthy rich at their expense and Google went along with it! The first time I saw an announcement that Google had hired a bigwig ebay person, my heart sank and even though I didn't know HOW it was more of a case of WHEN all this would happen.  |
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ecrater-moon
forum admin
Posts: 571
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| Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:00 pm Post subject: Re: Google Shopping |
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| heritagelaceandtreasuresboutique wrote: | Has it been posted anywhere what decision Ecrater is going to make in regards to the Google feed, since Google is making all of the big changes.
Will our items submitted to Google by Ecrater be stopped by Ecrater? It would be know to know what Ecrater's plans are. |
At this time we do not have an answer to these questions. We will make an announcement when there are further updates.
em |
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MoonwishesStore
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| Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks ecrater! Waiting patiently  |
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detacherco
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 2:21 am Post subject: Re: Google Shopping |
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| lastade-designs wrote: | | But- they are on the first page of the search. If someone is searching for an item like mine, I don't believe they will click on shopping if they can find it on search, so maybe small sellers that sell in specific niches will be ok. I don't know about the people that sell stuff you can buy at big box stores. I don't think they will fare as well. |
You've just answered all questions of this thread perfectly. Let me elaborate on the importance of what you are saying:
Google no longer displays shopping feeds in their regular search results. They used to display the top three items in summary, and even included a picture on the search results link. Now, the user must specifically click on 'Shopping' to see any items from the feed... This explains perfectly why sales might be down across the board, not just on eCrater. |
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thecheapskirt
Posts: 2123
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 3:09 am Post subject: Re: Google Shopping |
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| detacherco wrote: |
Google no longer displays shopping feeds in their regular search results. They used to display the top three items in summary, and even included a picture on the search results link. Now, the user must specifically click on 'Shopping' to see any items from the feed... This explains perfectly why sales might be down across the board, not just on eCrater. |
Not really.
I just did a search and this is what it looked like:
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 7:29 am Post subject: |
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. | Quote: | | Google no longer displays shopping feeds in their regular search results. They used to display the top three items in summary, and even included a picture on the search results link. Now, the user must specifically click on 'Shopping' to see any items from the feed... This explains perfectly why sales might be down across the board, not just on eCrater. |
Last night I opened up google in my regular way and searched for something. All the results that popped up were shopping results even though I didn't specifically clicked on google shopping.
I hadn't really realized this until last week. What I search for on my computer, the results are very different than what I might get if I search for the exact thing on your computer. So unless you are some kind of computer guru and can plum the depths of the internet, your google results are based upon the cookies they have about you and none of us really know what is on page 1 in search. I noticed this descrepancy just between my hubby's side of the computer and mine. Same search, vastly different results |
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UknowUneedAnother
Posts: 157
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 5:04 am Post subject: |
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Wandering in to keep track of this thread, too.
I'm in "wait and see" mode. I just "Can't" deal with the never ending cyber hoop jumping right, now. |
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AChildsWorldofFabrics
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:52 am Post subject: Google Shopping and SEO |
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Sorry if this is answered somewhere else, but I'm wondering if ecrater will be offering some other search engine submissions.
I've spent many hours jumping through hoops to get my items accepted by Google only to have Google go paid only. I gave up jumping through the hoops months ago, and the price of my item would quickly be lost paying 2x's it's retail price for paid search to get a sale.
I'd like to know (now that there's no chance for small sellers to have their products show on Google Shopping) if eCrater will stop flashing red to sellers about Google Attributes and start submitting our products to other search engines, eg Bing.
I'd appreciate any answers anyone has. |
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:01 am Post subject: |
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I do believe that they do that already (submit to other search engines). Last I checked, 20-30% of my hits are coming from Bing. But my Google hits are down by at least half from what they used to be.
My best suggestion is to not depend on search engines, but in promoting your products in the right places to the right people. We have always been responsible here to do our own promoting, but we all still depended highly on google. Well those times are gone and we have to work smarter than that. There is no reason that Bing might decide that what google is doing is a smart move and will do the same thing--charge for showing goods for sale. |
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AChildsWorldofFabrics
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:32 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for your reply. I guess I knew eCrater submitted to other search engines, however, they only give options for sellers to enter Google Attributes. I'm ready to move beyond Google and spend time being more visible in other search engines.
Small sellers won't change Google's mind about paid search. Many people remember eBay's "Best Match" policy proved that small sellers have no real influence (as mad as we all got). IMO, spending time trying to get Google to change it's policy is not a good investment of time.
I have a lot of time invested in my eCrater listings and don't really want to start the "finding a new venue game". I guess I'd like to see eCrater offer some support (similar to Google Attributes) for other search engines, so we can attempt to ensure better placement without having to move everything somewhere else. |
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MoonwishesStore
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| I don't think finding a new venue will help at this point as the other venues are at the mercy of google as well. I think we have to go where our customers are and try to engage them in different ways--one of the reasons those that sell everything from A-Z will have a harder time dealing with this (IMHO). Those of us selling sewing related things just need to find the sewers. Those selling sports stuff need to find the sports fans, etc. But trying to find all the different types of buyers for an eclectic store will be very busy! |
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FoxAndFish
Posts: 1585
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | I guess I knew eCrater submitted to other search engines, however, they only give options for sellers to enter Google Attributes. |
Do other shopping search engines have similar requirements to Google attributes?
| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | I'm ready to move beyond Google and spend time being more visible in other search engines. |
Being more visible in other search engines would be great. But every search engine has its own algorithm that may not be any more advantageous to online sellers than Google currently is...and every company that has a search engine is trying just as hard as Google is to monetize content, which will likely never be advantageous to small sellers. Besides which, Google is far and away the pre-eminent search engine, having spent nearly 14 years making itself a household brand. So even if a seller turns up great in, say, Dogpile search engine, the number of users searching on Dogpile is minuscule.
| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | Small sellers won't change Google's mind about paid search. |
Of course not. And I haven't seen anyone advocate trying to. Google and many other web institutions have only one thing in mind: making money off of content. They have no interest in the users or suppliers of content. So it is inevitable that they will eventually kill the goose that lays the golden egg. As Yahoo did with Flickr in 2005, as one example.
The only power consumers have is not using. Google made it very attractive and easy to get users to lick up their crumbs...for example by paying a few pennies to let Google squat its ads on user websites. And users fell for it constantly, taking ever more advantage of Google services until there was no competition. It's the same phenomenon as big-box stores. Everyone gets so excited about saving $2 on a hammer at Home Depot that they neglect the local hardware store...until there are no more local hardware stores, and consumers are at the mercy of a multinational corporation with no competition and no incentive to be responsive.
Not using Google, tho, would take years to have an effect, given the billions of users worldwide. And advertisers who are keeping Google afloat would likely still continue paying for the privilege until Google could no longer guarantee sufficient eyeballs b/c there is no other place to advertise at that magnitude.
| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | I have a lot of time invested in my eCrater listings and don't really want to start the "finding a new venue game". |
Many sellers do. But it is my opinion that multiple sites is one of the few ways to not get obliterated. I've been selling on up to 9 sites from nearly the beginning of my eCrater store (April 2009). One of the ways it becomes apparent that Google has been handing us endless BS about "quality content" and backlinks etc is by watching how all the venues perform in Google search. eCrater has done poorly since 2010, after MayDay. One site that consistently does very well in Google search results is a store I opened before eCrater that has less than 100 items in it and that I never tweak or promote. Google says, including in this latest round of updates, that it's trying to reduce spam. Which is utter nonsense, as I said in 2010. The thin spam and scraper sites still rise to the top, while "quality content" and selling venues like eCrater get buried. So either Google doesn't understand the consequences of its own actions or it's doing something other than what it's telling the public. Just as in 2010, if you spend any time reading SEO and webmaster type sites, this same loss of traffic is happening across many sites, not just marketplace/storefront venues.
| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | guess I'd like to see eCrater offer some support (similar to Google Attributes) for other search engines, so we can attempt to ensure better placement |
Do you know what might ensure better placement on competing search engines? |
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AudioGasoline
Posts: 1015
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| MoonwishesStore wrote: | | Last I checked, 20-30% of my hits are coming from Bing. But my Google hits are down by at least half from what they used to be. |
This is pretty much my exact analytics as well, at all three storefronts. |
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SheilaDeesPostcards
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Posts: 4619
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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| AChildsWorldofFabrics wrote: | | I guess I'd like to see eCrater offer some support (similar to Google Attributes) for other search engines, so we can attempt to ensure better placement without having to move everything somewhere else. |
The Google Attributes were for Google Shopping, not Google search engine. The only other "free" shopping listings that I'm aware of are The Find and Bing Shopping. I was told that eCrater submits a feed to both. However, Bing Shopping only displays new items and they recently added content from Shopping.com. They state on their forum that they still show the items from the free feeds, but give higher ranking to the shopping.com listings. (Follow the money!)
If you find other places that are free, I'm sure we would all be interested in them and maybe eCrater would consider doing a feed to them. |
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