Google Trusted Stores: For Organic Rankings & Search Ads?

Aug 30, 2011 at 4:05pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google Operating System Blog discovered a new feature to be released by Google named “Google Trusted Stores.”

The landing page for this feature will be at google.com/trustedstores but it is currently not live. There was a video that was released today that was just made private. The video was shared on Google Operating System Blog but was then marked as private shortly after.

The blog reports that the service “makes it easy for online shoppers to identify stores that provide an excellent online shopping experience.”

We know Google was likely to incorporate merchant reviews as ranking factors since a New York Times article exposed how treating your customers poorly or even abusing them can lead top rankings. Google disputed that and days later released an update to use merchant reviews as a ranking signal.

Now this new feature, Google Trusted Stores, may be simply ad related and have nothing to do with the organic reviews. Google recently removed the checkout badge from the AdWords listing. Maybe this will replace it? Maybe this is just a feature for Google Product Search?

A Google spokesperson told us “We’re always exploring new ways to help improve the online commerce experience but don’t have anything new to announce today. Stay tuned for more.”

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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hosst

I really disagree with this rating system, now google will be judge of customer service? do you know how many abusive people are online and how many people like to use these rating systems against competitors? People generally love to use rating systems to complaint rather than to complement services provided, if in doubt, look at ebay or amazon, the same people who loves to give low ratings is the same people who feel the power to trash someone’s profile, and they do as an addition. Does it mean that all SEO will be waste of time? I guess amazon, buy.com, waltmart and all the biggies will always be on the very top correct? is this how google treats the people who feed those 12 billion plus dollars? not fair, and I know what I’m saying. Only small sellers will feel the pain as usual.