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> our data show that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches. I

by larma 9y ago

> our data show that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches. If you would link them correctly, there wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site with their (usually better) results. Also, considering that product search results are sponsored, usually the top results at product search are crap. There are three things that people usually prefer links to when they search for a product: 1. High quality product information - that's usually the website of the manufacturer. Amazon is not too bad in some cases but smaller retailers usually lack a lot of useful information. 2. Best offer - when you pay for being a top result on Google product search, then it's hard to claim you will be able to provide the best price. 3. Buyers feedback - sites that are larger usually have more prior buyers and thus more feedback. Google's very own ratings (which the scrape from other sites that allow them I guess) is usually crap compared to what you find on Amazon. So basically, if Google would want to provide actual useful search results, this would just be a link to the manufacturers marketing site, a link to the best offer and/or the result page of a price-comparison site, and a link to Amazon and/or comparably large local retailers. Results based on who payed most is not what people usually want, don't try to argue that this is true.

Ajedi32 9y ago
> If you would link them correctly, there wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site with their (usually better) results. If I wanted to search Amazon, I would have searched Amazon, not Google. The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of the products I'm actually searching for. It'd be like if I searched for some random bit of information on Google and the top result was a link to the same search results page on Yahoo. > usually the top results at product search are crap According to the line from Google you quoted above, most of their users disagree with you on that. I'm one such user. I don't typically use Google's shopping results as the _only_ source of product information for me, but I do occasionally use them as one source. You also seem to be misunderstanding what the links they show actually link to. Buyer feedback and product information for individual products are available on the landing page (from a third party site, I might add) you get to when you click on a link to a product. The main difference is that you get to the product page directly rather than having to go through _another_ search results page from a third party to find what you're looking for.
- ksk 9y ago
  >The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of the products I'm actually searching for. The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages', but link to the actual product itself. You're already in agreement with them, so stop arguing :) The only problem here is that Google seems to think that its mission is to setup a tollbooth on the internet rather than indexing information and just responding to search queries. >According to the line from Google you quoted above, most of their users disagree with you on that. I'm one such user. An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" - You'll have to excuse the people who don't take that seriously.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    > The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages' Really? It certainly sounds like that's what he was talking about: > wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site In any case, linking directly to the actual product is _already_ what Google does. So if that's the goal, then what's the issue? > An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" That's another thing about this ruling that I don't get. Google's "Product Search" results are essentially paid ads, and they're explicitly marked as such. (Example: https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa) With this ruling, isn't the EU pretty much saying that Google isn't allowed to display ads on their search results pages, because those ads are displayed at the top of the page, thus "giving prominent placement to Google's own service"? That's ridiculous, right?
    - ksk 9y ago
      Google was not fined for displaying ads, but for promoting its services, illegally, via product tying. Google search should be responding to a query with relevant web pages that their crawler indexed. Instead, they insert a popup that links to their shopping service and try to make a buck off of that. This is the first complaint, the second is that they demoted rival shopping services from their search results.

by larma 9y ago

Ajedi32 9y ago

> If you would link them correctly, there wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site with their (usually better) results. If I wanted to search Amazon, I would have searched Amazon, not Google. The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of the products I'm actually searching for. It'd be like if I searched for some random bit of information on Google and the top result was a link to the same search results page on Yahoo. > usually the top results at product search are crap According to the line from Google you quoted above, most of their users disagree with you on that. I'm one such user. I don't typically use Google's shopping results as the _only_ source of product information for me, but I do occasionally use them as one source. You also seem to be misunderstanding what the links they show actually link to. Buyer feedback and product information for individual products are available on the landing page (from a third party site, I might add) you get to when you click on a link to a product. The main difference is that you get to the product page directly rather than having to go through _another_ search results page from a third party to find what you're looking for.

ksk 9y ago
>The last thing I want is to search for some product on Google and get a list of search results pages from other companies as a response instead of a listing of the products I'm actually searching for. The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages', but link to the actual product itself. You're already in agreement with them, so stop arguing :) The only problem here is that Google seems to think that its mission is to setup a tollbooth on the internet rather than indexing information and just responding to search queries. >According to the line from Google you quoted above, most of their users disagree with you on that. I'm one such user. An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" - You'll have to excuse the people who don't take that seriously.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  > The OP isn't talking about Google linking to 'search results pages' Really? It certainly sounds like that's what he was talking about: > wouldn't need to search again, but would be on the search results of that other site In any case, linking directly to the actual product is _already_ what Google does. So if that's the goal, then what's the issue? > An advertising company says "Our users think our ads are awesome" That's another thing about this ruling that I don't get. Google's "Product Search" results are essentially paid ads, and they're explicitly marked as such. (Example: https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa https://imgur.com/m5rGqLa) With this ruling, isn't the EU pretty much saying that Google isn't allowed to display ads on their search results pages, because those ads are displayed at the top of the page, thus "giving prominent placement to Google's own service"? That's ridiculous, right?
  - ksk 9y ago
    Google was not fined for displaying ads, but for promoting its services, illegally, via product tying. Google search should be responding to a query with relevant web pages that their crawler indexed. Instead, they insert a popup that links to their shopping service and try to make a buck off of that. This is the first complaint, the second is that they demoted rival shopping services from their search results.