25 June 2010 | Author: Andrew Girdwood Head of Strategy

Google testing retailer rating integration for PPC

Would knowing whether a retailer was trusted or not before you visited their site colour your user experience with the site? Would it impact your chances of buying something from them?

If the search engine told users in advance that the retailer was widely believed to be rubbish, it could deter web crawlers from clicking through. And if Google told them the retailer had a high rating, would they visit that site in favour of others?

These questions all pertain to a new test Google is currently conducting, where they show a retailer's ratings below paid search ads.

That's right - Google's seller rating integration with PPC is now out in the wild. In the example below, we can see how a search for [world cup] produces a paid search ad for Amazon and Alicia Keys (Alicia Keys performed at the World Cup ceremony, so it's not a mismatch), and as part of that ad we can see Amazon.co.uk's rating. The venerable retailer scores 5/5.



It's also possible to click on the rating link. Doing so takes a user through to the Google Products seller review page for Amazon.

This search illustrates clearly why attention has become a more significant element of search marketing tactics - where previously search had been almost primarily about intention. Amazon's PPC ad may be below both that of Budweiser and William Hill, but there's an argument that says the seller rating will help to increase CTR. And an increase in CTR is immensely beneficial to the PPC campaign.

We can also see how hard the PPC ads have to work at all in order to stand out from the very prominent World Cup OneBox Google currently features within search results. However, the World Cup OneBox will fade away shortly - at least for four years - whereas it is all too possible Google will dial up this rating integration and others in coming months.

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