Google Base Results Skewing Toward the BigCos

If you have products in Google Base or manage product feeds you have likely seen a trend in the past several weeks: top listings tend to be going to the Amazons, Office Depots and Petcos of the world.

For those of us lower on the Internet food chain this is disturbing news. I just saw a thread on the Google Merchant Center discussion board related to this topic:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/base/thread?tid=425b500e40cfcd89&hl=en

As many merchants are beginning to rely on the power of Google Product Search to drive traffic, here are a few thoughts:

1. This is not a case of some sort of evil collusion. Google appears to be giving more weight to sites with significant product reviews. To assert your claim on the top positions you want to consider participating in the some of the shopping engines that will provide the reviews that Google pays attention to.

2. If you see genuine cases of other merchants spamming Google Base or violating policies, Google provides a means for you to report abuse. Google tends to be reasonable and responsive.

http://google.com/support/merchants/bin/request.py?contact_type=policy

3. You have ongoing work to do, to keep your products at the top of the Google Product listings. This game ain’t easy. Keep on tuning your product feed listings – including product names, descriptions, and the product-type taxonomy. Pay close attention to what the competition is doing – including Amazon. As with Organic SEO, your listings do count.

If you have any other ideas on Google Product Feed success, please chime in!

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