by Head of Search
Andrew Girdwood
Google has always denied that they are in competition with eBay. Even after the search engine launched Google Base and after buyers and sellers found that they could use the database as a complete 'advertise and purchase' bundle, Google was sure there was no competition.Andrew Girdwood
There will be competition, though, and eBay is aware of this. Google Base's rates are 25c per item plus a 2.5% slice of the total sale value. eBay's own rates are 30c per item and a 2.9% slice. Google may not see Google Base as a direct rival to eBay but the two net giants do now encroach on each others territories.
So just what is Google up to with Google Base if the search engine is not directly targeting eBay? Clues come from comments Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, has made:
"The quickest way to improve the quality of an ad is to have the ad instantaneously turn into a purchase that is 100 percent perfect," Schmidt said. "We now have a solution that we believe enables advertisers to offer a digital product on the Web so that when people click on it, through a credit-card mechanism, it is automatically taken care of."
In other words, users can buy electronic products (ebooks, for example) straight from a platform like Google Base. If this 'purchase made - product delivered' cycle is then wired into Google's hugely popular AdWords search marketing technology then it would be possible to charge advisers on a 'pay per sale' basis.
In any case, an increasingly popular Google Base offers Google more pages to place its adverts on. In that field Google is already significantly ahead of eBay as the search engine generated 89 million visitors in February and the auction site managed only 52 million according to Nielsen NetRatings.
