Google is creating a financial comparison site called Google Merchant Search and is competing head to head with the likes of MoneySupermarket and Confused.com.
Currently the site is only offering comparisons between different secured loans from financial services providers in the UK but if the service is a success then Google is likely to expand to other high value services such as mortgages and insurance.
This is potentially big news for the big financial affiliate sites in the UK. No longer do they just have to compete with Adwords advertisers they need to compete with the universal search results too as you can see from our mock up below:
Unlike other services such as Product Search Google has some aggressive monetisation plans for Merchant Search. According to the FAQ’s Google will get a commission whenever somebody requests a quote rather than just being paid per click like with Adwords.
How do you choose which providers to show me?
Our search results are based on the criteria you provided in your request; we compare your request with our list of participating providers, and show those that are most relevant for you. Participating providers pay Google when someone requests a quote through this system.
More details about the service are below:
You can choose to contact any of the listed providers for a detailed quote. Just enter your information once, and Google will securely send your request to your selected providers. Your contact information is not shared with providers; a Google representative will connect them to you.
If you choose to call a provider, the numbers listed by Google here allow you to connect to the provider securely. This means your phone number won’t be passed on.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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This is getting scary and annoying at the same time. I wonder how long it will be until Google profits directly from all the spots on the first page…
They can’t spell “Merchant”, mind.
This should be a good thing for the market and Google as a whole, it is more surprising that it has taken this long for the project to commence. Not too scary after all.
As for the spelling mistake, luckily that is not a real Google result!
There are some screen shots of the live search facility available here: http://www.unitesearchmarketing.com/Google-Launches-Merchant-Search.htm
Have you seen Merchant Search in a One-box? Or is your mockup just an example of what Google could do if they wanted to?
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It’s just a mock-up.
More comments from Patrick AltoftSomebody has to stop Google. Has there ever been a more obvious case of a Monopoly with global reach?
Google are the greediest and most powerful corporation the World has ever seen. It looks like they won’t be happy until they pocket 99% of all online revenues.
At a guess this new service will be terrible like everything else they touch. Anything thing Google do that’s any good has been bought in from outside.
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