Google Embedded Search - Brand Abuse ?

[Shane]

if you do a search for MarksAndSpencer, marks, markandspencer.com etc.

You'll most likely see "search marksandspencer.com" button under their listing so enter a term and do a search and you'll get all the results from their site for that term.

wrapped around those marksandspencer site results will most likely be lots of nice traffic leakage potential in the form of adwords.

It would seem google is seeking to monetise brand and url traffic by offering this "service" to users, at the expense of the brand searched, seems to be only a chosen couple (I've only found marks and tesco) although there will be more no doubt, affected at the moment so probably trialing still.

[purple]

I was going to post this also as Ticketmaster also have a search box under their site links. I was wondering how they got this, does google manually choose these guys.

Hmmm just checked and these search boxes are gone?

[Shane]

still seeing M&S one here

marks and spencer - Google Search

no I doubt you opt in.. seems suicidal to me for big brand sites, users can search your site without even bothering to go there.. you miss out on eyes on page and potential marketing opptuinities plus your brand traffic is now being marketed to by adwords advertisers.

probably still a very early trial but I do recall reading something from google guy about them allowing you to effectiely check if a site has what you need before leaving google.

isn't a positive step for the brand involved IMO .. looks like this for any who don't see it when searching .. I added flowers then clicked search marksandspencer.com and the results came out like the bottom image

[morleymouse]

thats horrible.

but I guess google do need to work out how to get those paid ads showing whatever the weather

Seems to be on limited brands at the moment. Would be interesting to hear if any of the merchants on here have one showing, and if in their webmaster tools theres an option to disable it - like their is with the sitelinks?

Can see it being a real killer for some sites - kelkoo for example. Anyone searching for kelkoo is going to be looking for a product of some sort, so you search that and get loads of ads!

[buspassjohn]

According to my Webamaster Tools account :

Sitelinks are additional links Google sometimes generates from site contents in order to help users navigate your site. Google generates these sitelinks periodically from your site's contents.
Because we generate sitelinks dynamically, this list can change from time to time.

and yes you can disable them, there is a block facility for every link Google chooses, ours appeared for the first time today but lots of other merchants in our sector have had them for some time.
Not sure if they are good or bad, at the moment it seems just another way for merchants to show the type of goods they sell, time will tell.

Whoops!! sorry, looks like I didn't read it correctly and missed the Search Box bit, can't see how or why they get the Search Box, looks like another Google experiment in world domination.

[morleymouse]

Hi,

yeah I know about sitelinks, jsut wondered if there was similar for the search box thats appearing on some brands, seems to be retail mostly

[buspassjohn]

Yeah sorry about that, I must read properly in future, I'll let you know if Google offer us a search box (not very likely)

[jezaff]

as a user, I like the idea

[nealr99]

Looks like our site has one (Patient UK)

patient - Google Search

We've not opted in or been offered anything to show this.

[Shane]

how "lucky are you"

be nice to know if it affects the volume of your traffic, and any subsequent quality uplift of what does hit the site from google

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Here is another

wikipedia - Google Search

and here is Shane's blog on it

RevenueAddict.com » Blog Archive » Google Embedded Site Search - Brand Abuse ?

[purple]

ticketmaster - Google Search

this is another has anyone spotted any generic terms with this coming up

[Shane]

Just reading this month's issue of Revenue magazine and there's small piece about G$$gle's "i'm feeling lucky" button, which is used by around 1% of G$$gle users, this costs them around $110 million per year by taking users direct to the top search result they end up losing out on adwords revenue.

Conversely one can assume that if google can gain 1% more adwords exposure by people using the embedded search option that would add around upto $110 million into bank (at the cost of existing site owners traffic lost to competitor adwords clicks etc. ), traffic and volume is slightly skewed as it's brand and url orientated but still if they get the volume they'll be banking cash at the expense of others as users would be on the merchant's site they'd initially searched for on the first click before the embedded search box was introduced.

nice way to drum up an extra $110 million per year huh

[Mogga]

Looks like our site has one (Patient UK)

patient - Google Search

We've not opted in or been offered anything to show this.

I see that search box. Still don't see the M&S one.

And I was on patient.co.uk last night looking up info on rat bites.

[Brendon]

Don't worry about it. It's merely an additional mark of uber-authority over and above SiteLinks - I can't see it making a material difference to anyone, since it will only ever appear for those who already have a dominant position for a term, and simply replaces the "more results" option with ther search box.

I've seen a suggestion that it's an attempt by G to gather what should be internal site search data themselves, but since it's such a PoS implemenation, if any of my sites had it, I'd be rapidly detuning my SEO to lose it. It's an albatross