Google To Charge For Local Listings Results?

by WebVyz
2 replies
  • SEO
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The Financial Times carries a story on Google's new policy of charging vendors to appear in their Froogle:
The change in direction brings an end to a 10-year-old experiment in which Google tried to filter information about products from the Web and make it available through a separate panel on its results pages. When it launched the service, first known as Froogle, the company said that not charging merchants to list items would give internet users "confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased".
Of particular interest to search engine optimization is the following observation toward the end of that FT article:
"We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date," he added.

Similar arguments could be made about other areas of information that Google presently indexes free of charge, raising the possibility that more parts of its service will eventually be replaced by advertising, Mr Sullivan said. These include Google Places, the company's local listings service, which relies partly on information supplied by restaurants, stores and other providers of local services. Google refused to comment on its future plans.
Small businesses serving local areas benefit greatly from search engine optimization strategies by raising their rank in Google's local listings. If Google starts charging them money, this will impact the way those local businesses see their search engine optimization investments. The question is, how will it impact those investments?
#charge #google #listings #local #results
  • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
    I personally don't think Google will ever turn the local listings into a paid service. My reasons:

    1) The data displayed there is usually publicly available elsewhere, too.
    2) If Google does that, it will discredit them very badly in their antitrust fights.
    3) If they do that, they might very easily lose the battle for local with Facebook.
    4) Their latest move - migrating Google Places to Google+, doesn't really support such a statement. On the contrary, it proves that Google is simply searching for new ways to display ads and to include additional "attached" services to its core local listings.

    Overall, local listings will most probably never be a paid service. However, add-ons such as Offers, LatLong, Punchd, Talkbin, AdWords (obviously), etc., will very probably be paid. This seems to be going to be the long-term goal of Google, and it has always been - creating the best core service (think "Search") and adding mediocre to very good paid add-ons (think "AdWords").

    Just my 2 cents.

    Nyagoslav
    NGS Marketing
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetJon
    I don't think they're referring to the places listings. Like Nyagoslav said, it doesn't make sense, especially considering the integration of Places into Google+.

    They seem to be referring to Google Shopping (Products), not the actual small business placings. This is where they can actually sell their goods, not simply have their information listed.
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