Google announced yesterday that it is expanding its free Google Shopping service to not just Google Shopping but to the main Google.com Google search results. Bill Ready, the President of Commerce at Google, said "we're now bringing free retail listings to Google Search."
Free listings in Google Shopping are helping to generate billions of dollars of sales for retailers and SMBs. We’re now bringing free retail listings to Google Search @google https://t.co/Sx4lG55ayY
— Bill Ready (@williamready) June 29, 2020
Google said it is "now, we’re bringing free listings to the main Google Search results page in the U.S., helping shoppers choose the products and sellers that will serve them best, from the widest variety of options."
The paid version is not going away. Google said "Shopping ads continue to be a great tool for merchants to engage with consumers and will appear separately at the top of the page, clearly marked like Google’s other ad units. Merchants can choose how to show up and shoppers can choose where to click."
Here is how the free shopping ads look in the product knowledge panels:
Google is launching this in the Summer, in the US, first on mobile and then on desktop in the knowledge panels but it will be expanded more broadly.
Here is Google's help document on this topic.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
