Google is improving product search results and making it easier for consumers to price without leaving search engine page results.
Search for off-brand items like “buy blue women's sundresses” and scroll through sponsored listings and local search results. Below that, Google has added a grid of tiled product boxes to its primary SERP that are triggered by purchase intent queries. Each tile can include product name, image, price, store name, average star rating, and number of reviews.
Tiles function differently than traditional organic results. Rather than directing a shopper to a product detail page on an e-commerce site, the tile links to a shopping knowledge panel that loads in his SERP. Panels are similar to product detail pages, with one major difference. That's because Google is adding prices to seller listings.
“This is especially useful for users because it allows them to compare prices much more easily,” says e-commerce SEO consultant Aleyda Solis. But for online stores, getting clicks is yet another hurdle.
It remains unclear how Google will rank product tiles. However, they are set by structural data (such as Schema.org markup). SEO consultants and e-commerce store owners have been wrestling with which structured data types are worth publishing for years because Google hasn't focused on all structured data types.
But last February, Google expanded its support for product structured data, announcing new shipping and return classes and product variations such as size, color, and material. This may overshadow any quibbles over the value of structured data, as visibility in product grids and shopping knowledge panels relies on structured data.
shopping knowledge panel
In the Shopping Knowledge Panel, store names on product tiles are ranked at the top of the seller list. However, size, color, and other sorting options allow shoppers to reshuffle the seller list by those variations.
The sorting feature could encourage store owners to step up their schema efforts or risk disappearing from store listings. Shoppers who use this feature may unintentionally exclude sellers who ignore product variations.
“There are tools that make it easy to implement product schema markup even if you have technical constraints or don't have a developer. Worddrift is one of them. Schema apps are another,” Solis said. say. You can also use ChatGPT to generate product schemas.
For e-commerce sellers, the Shopping Knowledge Panel reduces the importance of unique landing pages. Many search users may go directly from the product grid to the shopping knowledge panel to the seller's product detail page.
This development could be a win for Amazon, as the breadth and depth of its catalog means it will appear in more product knowledge panels. Additionally, Amazon can use predatory pricing to harm small e-commerce stores on its seller list.
Last September, Google's domain name registrar business was acquired by Squarespace. “Maybe Google thinks they don't need domains anymore,” speculates digital strategist Ross Carnes. “If everything is converted to SGE, [Search Generative Experience] If only e-commerce survives, the top of the funnel will be lost. Transactional queries are here to stay, but that means people may need fewer domains,” says Carnes.
Mike King, CEO of marketing agency iPullRank, disagrees. “I've heard stories about how websites disappeared with the advent of mobile apps. People thought they didn't need websites anymore. Everything was going to be an app. Well, that's not true. It didn’t happen,” King says.
Decrease in value?
In any case, traditional organic listings are being pushed further down the line. As a result of AI, paid shopping, pay-per-click advertising, map packs, forums, image carousels, and now product grids can help you stay above traditional organic rankings and reduce traffic.
With the rise of ChatGPT, the growth of product review searches on TikTok and Instagram, and the recent completion of the March Core Update, Google is reinventing web search and perhaps reducing the value of organic search as a marketing channel. It seems there are.
As a result, marketers may be forced to prioritize other traffic sources such as social networks, email marketing, and generative AI optimization.
You can't ignore Google's huge user base. But with so much SERP volatility, diversifying your e-commerce traffic sources is becoming increasingly important. We see no evidence that e-commerce merchants are shifting resources away from organic search to TikTok, ChatGPT, Reddit, or Facebook. However, the risks of relying on organic traffic seem to be increasing.