The appearance of Google Shopping Product Listing Ad (PLA) integrations within Google’s search results increased by 118 percent during 2014, while video results are blended into 55 percent of keyword searches ‒ with videos from YouTube accounting for the lion’s share.
Overall, the prominence of Google’s own products (Google PLAs, YouTube videos and Google Maps) in Universal Search results has increased. The findings come from a new study of Universal Search results appearing in Google.com by Searchmetrics, the leader in search and content optimization.
The company reviewed the search results pages for millions of keywords and analyzed the appearance of Shopping, Video, Image, News and Map integrations (also known as “Blended Search)”.
Overall the study found that four out of five keyword searches produced at least one Universal Search integration within search results. By the end of 2014, the most frequent integration was video, with at least one video integration appearing for 55% of keywords analyzed. This was followed by Images (40%) and Google Shopping Ads (16%).
Which Universal Search Integrations Are Most Likely To Appear?
- Video (55%)
- Images (40%)
- Shopping/PLAs (16%)
- News (13%)
- Maps (7%)
Google Shopping ads show biggest growth
The share of Google Shopping PLA integrations more than doubled over the year, with the proportion of keywords for which at least one Google Shopping integration was displayed rising from 7.5% to 16% between January and December 2014 (there was a dip in the summer months, possibly because of the seasonal retail market slowdown). In total, Google Shopping PLA integrations account for 44% of all integrations shown across the millions of keywords analyzed – more than any other integration.
Google Shopping has been a paid for service globally since February 2013 requiring retailers to buy PLAs incorporating images, pricing and other information in order to promote their products within Universal Search integrations for relevant keyword queries.
“The growth in the proportion of keywords for which Google Shopping Integrations are displayed represent increasing opportunities for retailers to buy Product Listing Ads and for Google to generate income from the now paid for Google Shopping service,” explained Marcus Tober, CTO and founder of Searchmetrics.
Source: Searchmetrics
