Google seems to be having a bit of an issue with spam getting into its popular products section. This may be fed in through Google Merchant Center or normal rich results - I am not 100% sure. But here is a screenshot showing one company listing the same product over and over again, even though it should be 10 different stores.
This was shared by Brian Freiesleben on X who wrote, "Yikes. Looks like there's a spam problem within Google's Popular Product Listings."
Brodie Clark replied:
Nice catch! There does seem to be a low barrier to entry in some cases for this feature - spammy sites can suddenly rank if they qualify. See similar happening for larger sites when they don't control parameters, can mean they get multiple URLs for the same product in there
Brian replied to that:
Have you noticed its often when both URLs are included in their GMC feed? I've questioned if that's the main reason when seeing some similar things -rather than just the parameter existing elsewhere and G crawling it and then serving it. Seems like the feed is a strong factor.
Personally, I was unable to replicate this spammy result a few days after it was posted. So maybe, just maybe, Google got it under control???
Forum discussion at X.
Update: More of this:
My awesome teammate @jamie_reedy also found this today. eBay and/or Merchant Center being spammed, which I think @rustybrick wrote about in a recent article, but this time it’s on eBay.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) February 8, 2024
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