Amazon Vs Google in ‘Buy Products’ Searches

At least in the USA, Amazon are apparently getting more first time product search queries than search engines like Google & Bing. That’s according to a recent poll by eMarketer as per below. If this trend is sustained, the ‘search’ world should be thought about differently.

Yet Google is increasingly moving into vertical e-commerce search queries. We have seen first hand how they are scraping eCommerce websites and providing comparative results in pop out pages on the Right Hand Side of their results pages. And we’re not talking about the ‘Google Shopping’ feed on the RHS of the results page. We’re talking about a matrix version of websites, products, pricing, etc.

Expect more from Google & Bing on this as they look to fight back. One way Google is doing this is without fanfare launching functionality within their Google My Business product that allows businesses to provide a link to their booking URL. This has far greater reach than Google Flights!

Google Vs AI

We were skeptical about Microsoft’s claims that 40% of people using Google don’t find what they are looking for. This was a throw away statistic they quoted when announcing that they had incorporated AI into Bing.com search functionality. SEMRush has come out with research that found:

A) 10% of people click through to other Google properties (GMB, shopping or images)

B) 18% refine what they are searching for by using another keyword.

C) 25% Zero-click searches meaning they stay on Google results page and then exit.*

The point here is that 1/4 of people searching on Google find what they are looking for after 1 search query and then do not need to go further. All stats (including Google’s ad revenue) show they have been sending more traffic to the open web every year. So the fact is that Google does provide users with the answer and they don’t just exit the search engine.

And. In every SpyFu competitor analysis of the number of SEO keywords and monthly SEO clicks that websites receive in the past 6-9 months, we’re seeing declines resulting from the Google Algorithm Core Update on September 2022 and Helpful Content Update in December 2022. See chart below. So, what does this mean? It means Google are ripping on ChatGPT and Generative AI content production.

The bottom line is that just because you can use ChatGPT or tools like Jasper.Ai and other content tools, the mass production of content isn’t going to make it to page 1 of Google. Another way of saying this is you get nothing for nothing in this world. Just ask the crypto fanatics who spiked that ball for the past 5 years!