Google Spotted Ranking Products on the SERP
Yesterday evening, our Search team spotted a new development in the Product Listing Ads display format: numerical rankings.
Performing a standard query for “coffee grinders” on Google yields your typical results:
But it appears as if the qualifier “best” or even “top” prompts Google to rank the products from 1-8 (may not always show 8 ads, however):
You’ll notice that all these ads have seller ratings integrated, and it appears as if Google is heavily weighting the ranking of these products towards a combination of the total number of reviews and the actual rating itself. For example, the 3rd listing, the De’Longhi Black coffee grinder, has about 4.5 stars and 69 reviews. However, the Cuisinart Supreme Grinder at #2 has an avg seller rating of 4 stars with 312 reviews.
Another interesting new feature here is that the link to click through to the Shopping interface actually says “Shop for top rated [query]:”
One of our Retail Search Specialists, Román Fitch, notes, “It seems to work with electronics and appliances. The shopping tab ‘ranks’ the products as well under a section called ”Most Popular.’ Although, it looks like Google is weighing the number of reviews much more here than just average stars (ie: 4-stars @312 reviews > 4.5-stars @30 reviews):”
It will be interesting to see what marginal changes to ad performance this new ranking feature will bring about.
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