After a test run, which took place back in May, Google have implemented a new search feature this week – product reviews and ratings on Google search and Google shopping.
The five star rating system will now begin to appear on Product Listing Ads (PLAs), although it is only in the United States at the moment (it’s likely to spread to other countries over the next few months). Currently it will also be only available on desktop PCs rather than mobile devices.
Merchants who want their product’s ratings displayed on Google have until October to provide all their relevant review data so that they can appear in PLAs. Ratings data can be shown directly or through an approved third party aggregator. On their support pages, Google have stated that their aim is to is to ‘help users easily find this information when searching for products through Google shopping on google.com and google.com/shopping, and to help advertisers drive more qualified traffic to their sites.’
Mike Capsambelis, Product Manager of Google Shopping, said: “We believe these ratings will help differentiate products across google.com and google.com/shopping and will help merchants drive more qualified traffic through Product Listing Ads. In initial tests, product ratings also helped increase click-through-rates of Product Listing Ads.”
It seems that Google will be adding more extensions to PLAs. Capsambelis went on to say that “Product ratings are one of several extensions we may show with Product Listing Ads, so please note that just because a product has reviews does not mean that we’ll always show ratings.”
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