The Digital Lookout

Kelkoo has today emailed all its advertisers to inform them that they have been acquired by newly formed venture capitalist company Jamplant.  In a slightly surprising move Yahoo! has relinquished the comparison site but will maintain Kelkoo as the comparison engine behind Yahoo shopping, cars, finance and travel.

This is a strange move by Yahoo! who purchased Kelkoo for $576 M just 4 years ago.  With comparison engines a key element of unviersal search and Google placing more and more emphasis on the product search with the introduction of plus box functionality in PPC the sense of this move by Yahoo could be questioned.

Whilst they may maintain they still have access to the functionality and you would hope this is part of the deal.  I do worry what happens in the future if the relationship sours.  In the current economic climate Yahoo will be happy to relinquish the overhead but it may come back to bite them in the future if they go down the same route as Google has.  What do you think?  Shrewd move to cut costs, or mistake they will regret in the future?

This was first announced at the Google Above and Beyond Summit in Dublin last month but it appears it has reached the UK, at least in Beta format. (searchengineland article)

The plus box on PPC listings is one of Google’s latest developments in Universal Search and aims to provide more useful PPC listings and (much like the search within a search results) allow a user to select the most appropriate page or product within an advertisers site before leaving the Google SERP.

The plus box example given by Search Engine Land is the inclusion of product listings on the expansion of the plus box along with images, prices and descriptions.  This is one of the main uses for the plus box Google is looking to introduce and is linked to a Google Base account for the individual product information.

The other use for this technology that Google indicated was the ability to show branch locations on brand terms (and location specific keywords) so that a user could see and possibly click through to the appropriate web page or even website for their nearest branch.  This again is linked to Google Base and driven by the same technology as Google Maps.

Google is starting to join the dots with their different channels with integrations such as this and it is becoming more and more important for advertisers to consider the whole Google suit as part of their strategy.  Even if they aren’t going to get much significant volume directly from Google Product Search or Google Maps, it will have an overall benefit on both their PPC and SEO campaigns as Google introduces more and more initiatives such as this.

The finance comparison market has been a very lucrative and successful one over the past 5 years and it seems that Google has finally decided that it wants a piece of the pie! The screenshot below is taken from a Google UK search for secured loan (interestingly it only worked in IE and not in Firefox) and shows the Google Merchant Search function appearing above all PPC listings with drop down functionality allowing the user to select their desired loan amount before they even leave the SERP. Once an option is selected the user is taken to the Google Merchant page with their options shown based on the original selection, much like with all the other comparison sites in the market.

At the moment it appears this is just in Beta on the secured loan keyword but surely if successful this will be rolled out onto all other financial products. I couldn’t see where Google was getting these results from, and so I am not even sure if the providers know they are being compared (although I assume they are aware) and there is not indication of how a company would get its products listed, although this could just be a closed beta for now.

This could have massive implications for the comparison market, above and beyond the fact that there is another competitor in the market. In the first instance they have knocked moneysupermarket off the top PPC listing which will impact their volume, I am assuming they are not paying themselves a premium CPC for this position! They are also allowing themselves much more prominence on the page than a standard listing. 49 characters for a title and drop down functionality make it stand out on the page. Users could also see this as an easier option than clicking through a link and going through the whole process on a separate engine.

On top of this, if the beta is successful, what is to stop them adding in a variable to quality score which penalises other comparison sites? In one fell swoop generating themselves both more revenue from the sites willing to pay more and reducing the prominence of these sites and so driving more volume through their own tool. I may be a cynic but I can see it happening. Moneysupermarket spend a lot of money with Google but if they see a bigger opportunity in doing it themselves then they will surely pursue this avenue instead.

Is this the end of independent comparison sites? No, I doubt it, but if/when the beta is expanded it could be a big dent in their revenues and they will have to think of other ways to differentiate themselves. Some insurers (direct line to name one) are already boycotting the comparison sites and if Google is to offer this service for free, which they may well do in the name of stickiness and keeping people within the Google realm, more could follow suit.

I spotted something on Google today which I hadn’t seen before and is a new development in universal search.  On a search for “times” I was presented with the standard search results you get for a brand term but then in addition to this there was a search box contained with the results! On entering a search phrase into this box I was presented with the site search results but still with the Google SERP.  This functionality is well known and nothing new but the inclusion of the search box in the results is not something I have seen before. 

It is obviously just another element of Universal Search in action but is alos a good tool for Google to make their results as accurate as possible and keep people within their pages.  By allowing them to search within Google for keywords contained within a site you are not only enhancing the user experience but promoting loyalty and boosting query numbers at the same time, win all round.  On top of this they are also able to produce additional Adwords results on the secondary search and potentially boosting revenues as well.

Google announced on its blog yesterday the launch of a new tool for universal search, the flight status function.  All you have to do is search on the airline and the flight number and Google will tell you whether it is delayed or on time and its departure and arrival times.  its a useful little tool this one as it removes the need to find the airlines web page and with a lot of people having Google as their homepage or using a tool bar it speeds up the process.  I would be interested to see if it cover ALL airlines though and how accurate and frequently updated the information this as this is key.  Without accuracy the tool may as well not exist.