Search Within A Search – Good Idea?
In case you missed it on TechCrunch the other day, Google is now showing search boxes within SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for some of the larger online retailers like Amazon, Zappos and Office Max.
The boxes only appear for certain keywords, for example “amazon” and “shop amazon” but not “amazon books.” Zappos shows up for “zappos shoes” but not “zappos shopping.” For other sites, adding “shop” or “shopping” to the site name won’t trigger a search box at all.
OfficeMax should be pleased that this works for them but not for Staples and Office Depot, at least it makes them seem a bit more important? I noticed that Target and Walmart get a search box, but not Sears. NewEgg, Radio Shack and BestBuy get one, but not Circuit City. Ebay and Overstock also are left out, which is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Even comparison engines are either in or out. Bizrate, Nextag and PriceGrabber are in, Shop.com and Shopping.com are out. Perhaps this is a feature that Google is still rolling out in stages, or it’s just being tested. You never know if a new feature would fly unless you give it a trial run!
When you use these boxes, the results leave something to be desired. Results are not helpful without product images. And the top results are only going to lead you to the destination site’s search page for your keyword, anyway.
This could be useful if your shipping and customer service information is impossible to find with your internal site search. But top online retailers like these should already have that optimized. TechCrunch ran a reader poll and the results are close to 50/50 on whether users like the idea or not. I’m in the “nay” camp, I don’t see the value.
If these boxes were included with larger retail site listings in Google for general terms like “clock radio” or “wireless headphones” – it could give bigger retailers a click-through advantage. Anything that makes a search result stand out (like sub-category links or a Google Checkout badge in AdWords) attracts the eye and may be perceived as a more trusted result. I hope it doesn’t end up this way, unless it’s a completely level playing field – retailers large and small. But again, I don’t any value in doing so.
SEO Tip
You’ll notice the search box in the screenshot above has ” {keyword} site:http://www.domain.com ” in the search box. “Site-colon” is an advanced “search operator” that you can use to check which pages of your site are indexed by a search engine. If you want to check if a particular page is indexed, you can copy and paste that url after the “site:”
Running a site-colon check on your root domain will show all your indexed pages. If your product pages are not showing up, it’s a sign the engine is not crawling your site as deep as you want it to and you should look into your site structure or other SEO activities to ensure there are no barriers to indexing.
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The way it is supposed to work is explained on the google blog :
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/search-within-site-tale-of.html
But it doesn’t seam to work the way they describe as you mentionned in your post!
In France instead of the search box, we get : other search results on the same domain as a text-link.
Hi Matthew,
I don’t see how this is valuable for ecommerce sites, but I can understand for information sites and blogs. For example, I was searching today for “internet retailer chat” to bring up an article I read yesterday. Of course Google decides which of potentially hundreds of pages on that site is relevant. It would have helped to have the site search right there on Google. Of course, I.R. has its own search box only one click away from the SERP.
I would like to bring out a point that no one, points out,
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i see this search within search feature as a way for Google to cross sell products / ‘MERCHANTS’,
basically where this happens is that for example: I’m doing a search on Google for amazon.com > than I’m searching in the search within search box for apple on amazon.com [and the reason is because I like Amazon so I’m going directly to them] – try it out for yourself you will find that there is sponsored links on that page even if you are searching only from within amazon.com
Now this is a way of being able for Google to make more money and promotes your competitors products on your search results page.
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Just me observation –
Good observation. Sponsored links do appear for certain search terms, although I’d imagine click through on them would be far lower if your preference is to search Amazon.com (based on good experiences in the past or other reasons).
However, if there is a compelling call to action in AdWords it could steal a click away, it’s possible. Or if there are simply no results or very bad results, these alternatives are right there…so in a way that’s easier on the searcher who would have to start the search over again if he/she were actually on Amazon searching.
From an advertiser’s point of view, I’d like to pay my content network bid price for this kind of impression, rather than the search network bid price – simply because you’d expect a searcher’s mindset to be different than searching for a product. Rather, the searcher is searching for a product within a specific site with the intention of clicking through to that website.
I doubt these impressions are treated as content bids. That would also exclude all advertisers who have opted out of the content network.
I don’t think that search boxes within SERPs are best suited for e-commerce web-sites, I think they should only be used for sites that contain a lot of information, for example Wikipedia (Which does have search boxe within SERP). Like you said, you cannot see images like you can on Froogle.