Google Amazon results - They are terrible! - Google Search and SEO forum at WebmasterWorld

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Google Amazon results - They are terrible!

johnnie

4:27 am on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Oh goodness...

If I do a search (context: I'm in Australia) for a certain term related to budget transportation, Google's serving up a large chunk of 'amazon results' above the organic listings. Some initial thoughts:

- These results are WAY irrelevant. They promote books, whereas the search is clearly about getting budget transportation! Not a good user experience, is it?

- The results are not localized. Amazon is a US-based company. Assuming one would want to buy books about budget transportation when searching for 'budget transportation', why would Google lead Australian users to shop in the US and pay hefty shipping fees? Not a good user experience, is it?

In my opinion, Google's WAY out of line with their controversial 'do no evil' mission. They've just taken a huge wad of cash from Amazon and seem to compromising their search results' integrity in return.

Yuck.

tedster

4:58 am on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Possibly related - here's an article with a screenshot that shows a new kind of expanded search result for Amazon: Google partners with Amazon to show "Amazon Results" [blogstorm.co.uk].

I haven't been able to find any documentation a partnership deal - but it sure looks like it, as the article claims.

Planet13

5:09 am on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Off topic somewhat...

It may be down to personalization issues mucking up the results, but it seemed to be that google Australia SERPS are LITTERED with American companies. Seems that most of the Ozzie and NZ results take a back seat to the US.

Again, it might be personalization messing things up.

johnnie

7:21 am on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Oh my goodness! Turns out it was the "awesome screenshots" plugin for Chrome that was hijacking my search results and placing affiliate links above the search results. That one's going in the bin for good...

How can Google approve a spyware plugin that even hijacks its own search results?

phranque

9:59 am on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

the takeaway here is that regarding browser plugins, disabling != uninstalling

Bewenched

7:13 pm on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

How can Google approve a spyware plugin that even hijacks its own search results?

probably because Amazon is paying them.
I see SO many amazon product links that are what I call very thin pages that come up above our products it's unreal. Maybe the FTC will continue to dig further into the unfairness that google is exhibiting.