I watch Google Merchant Center and the results it feeds to the universal results in the main SERPs pretty closely. I noticed something a little different today. For several months Google has been showing a marked preference for product results from the big brands. In my industry this means a lot or products from Amazon and Home Depot were dominating the products showing up in universal results. They seem to be at least trialing becoming more of a "comparison" engine by weighting the results much more towards products which can be found at multiple vendors. In a search for "hardwood flooring" where before the listings were dominated by big brands, 4 of the 5 results now show no brand listed in the results. When clicking on a non-branded result the link now leads to the page comparing the same product across differnent vendors on Google Merchant Center. Does this signal a slight shift away from the favoritism Google has been showing big brands in the last year or so or … [Read more...]
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