Google Product Search, the company’s price comparison engine for online shopping, just got some nifty new updates. Just in time for the start of the holiday shopping season, Google introduced a smarter search feature today, it’s so-call “best match” feature, which highlights the product Google thinks you are most likely looking for. Product Search now also often displays a popularity ranking when you search for a product category like wireless routers, heart rate monitors, vacuum cleaners or toddler car seats.
In addition to all of this, Google also added more information about a given product to its “Product Feature” section on every product page. Because of this, these pages now look a bit more like Amazon product pages.
If you are looking for shoes, you will be happy to hear that Product Search now incorporates some of the features of the recently closed Boutiques.com. Shoe shoppers can now search by brand, color and style, for example.
For those who can’t make up their mind, Google has also curated a list of potential gift ideas on its mobile homepage.
@MarcusSchuler @fredericl Gibts bald mal wieder nen Podcast? Wäre super 😉
@sv3nk good timing. Gerade vor 30 Minuten aufgenommen 🙂
@fredericl Cool. Ich sollte öfter mal fragen 🙂
@sv3nk @fredericl ja, zum Wochenende #geekweekde
The new features are great, but merchants aren’t even required to submit accurate tax and shipping data to consumers. So there’s an inherent flaw here, yes, these features improve Google Product Search. But what about the core of what a consumer wants in a price comparison service?
Accurate pricing, no bait-and-switch shipping costs, Google has not addressed these issues fully at the detriment to shoppers and merchants who supply accurate tax and shipping data.
More info on this story in this Search Engine Land article:
http://searchengineland.com/despite-new-rules-google-product-search-merchants-not-providing-accurate-tax-shipping-costs-100840