Just when you thought paid inclusion was finally dead with holdout Yahoo getting out of the space, it’s come back from the most unlikeliest of sources: Google. Below, a look at the experiment plus reexamining the FTC’s guidelines about disclosing paid ads. Does saying “Promoted Videos” on YouTube rather than “Sponsored Videos” meet these?

For those unfamiliar with paid inclusion, it is where advertisers pay to have their listings included within editorial results, rather than being listed separately from them as paid placement search ads. In paid inclusion, there’s also no guarantee that the ads will show in a particular position.

Paid inclusion is a dinosaur left over from the days when you had companies that would sell a search partner only editorial results, leaving it to that partner to outsource with someone else for paid listings. For example, Microsoft once had its search engine using editorial results from Inktomi and paid results from Overture. It is also a remnant from before the days when search ads generated so much revenue that there was no need to deal with “messy” paid inclusion.

Messy? Sure. Yahoo would tell the world how fresh and complete its index was. Yet to site owners, it would pitch paid inclusion as a way to ensure that your pages were getting regularly visited by its spider or not overlooked entirely. It’s also messy to explain to searchers that these paid listings integrated into editorial results aren’t “ads” simply because they weren’t guaranteed to rank.

Paid inclusion is so messy that Google’s founders took an extraordinary step of speaking out against it in their IPO registration document of April 2004 several times. I’ll come back to those statements, but let’s look at what’s happening on Google now

The folks over at Range Online Media spotted new ads that are integrated directly within shopping results. Below are some screenshots they also provided me:

The arrow points to the ads. Here’s another example:

Here’s a close-up of the ad integration:

I can’t see these, when I look at the same pages, such as here. That’s because it’s an experiment that Google confirmed to me is being shown only to a small number of people. These are also separate from the other Google Product Ads rolled out this month to everyone.

I asked about these being paid inclusion. In response, I was sent:

At Google, ads are always labeled to indicate that the information is sponsored. We’re currently running a test in which Product Listing Ads appear on the Google Product Search page when a user clicks to ‘Compare Prices.’ Like the product listings, these ads provide information such as prices and ratings, so when a user sorts the information, the list changes the order of both the listings and the ads. As always, the ads are labeled as advertisements, and this experiment is intended to help us understand whether this is a useful experience for our users. This feature is currently in a limited beta with a small number of U.S.-based advertisers, and as with all tests, we may make changes to our current experiment in the future.

Wow. That made me feel more than ever this was paid inclusion. See, even though there’s an ad label attached to the listings, the fact that they are integrated within editorial results themselves rather than being segregated from them is one sign. In addition, if you can sort the results, then the ads have no guaranteed placement, which again is a core element of paid inclusion.

Now let’s go back to what Google’s founders said about the practice in the IPO papers (I’ve bolded key parts):

Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating.

And:

We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial incentives. Our search results will be objective and we will not accept payment for inclusion or ranking in them.

And:

Objectivity. We believe it is very important that the results users get from Google are produced with only their interests in mind. We do not accept money for search result ranking or inclusion. We do accept fees for advertising, but it does not influence how we generate our search results. The advertising is clearly marked and separated. This is similar to a newspaper, where the articles are independent of the advertising. Some of our competitors charge web sites for inclusion in their indices or for more frequent updating of pages. Inclusion and frequent updating in our index are open to all sites free of charge. We apply these principles to each of our products and services. We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see.

And:

Froogle [the name for Google Product Search back then] enables people to easily find products for sale online…. Most online merchants are also automatically included in Froogle’s index of shopping sites. Because we do not charge merchants for inclusion in Froogle, our users can browse product categories or conduct product searches with confidence that the results we provide are relevant and unbiased. As with many of our products, Froogle displays relevant advertising separately from search results.

At best, Google could excuse the current experiment from being paid inclusion by saying that these advertisers are not being charged to be included. That if they want to be in those listings, that’s free if they put in product feeds. But paid inclusion overall was rarely pitched as a way only to be included. It was pitched as a way to guarantee fast inclusion and constant updates. And the unspoken benefit was that it put you right in the mix of the regular results.

When I spoke further with Google about the move, the company stressed that the ads all have ad disclaimers and that the testing will also look at putting the ads outside the regular results and also may not allow for sorting. What you see above isn’t final, by any measure.

Certainly the ad disclaimer helps, but as long as they’re integrated right in the regular results, with sorting, that’s paid inclusion in my book. It’s also paid inclusion according to the Federal Trade Commission, from its definition in 2002 (again, I’ve bolded the key part):

Paid inclusion can take many forms. Examples of paid inclusion include programs where the only sites listed are those that have paid; where paid sites are intermingled among non-paid sites; and where companies pay to have their Web sites or URLs reviewed more quickly, or for more frequent spidering of their Web sites or URLs, or for the review or inclusion of deeper levels of their Web sites, than is the case with non-paid sites….

In a related matter, I asked why YouTube’s “Promoted Videos” aren’t called “Sponsored Videos,” as they once were. “Sponsored” has been the search industry’s term-of-choice when it comes to indicating what’s an ad. It’s used by Google, Yahoo and Bing, and it was a word the FTC particularly seemed to like when it issued guidelines.

Google emailed me:

Whenever a Promoted Video appears on YouTube, it is marked as a ‘Promoted Video’ to indicate that it is an advertisement. This label is hyperlinked to the YouTube Glossary, which offers more information about the Promoted Videos advertising program.

OK, I knew that. But these were called “Promoted Videos” originally, then changed to “Sponsored Videos,” then changed back to Promoted, which to my ear doesn’t sound as ad-like. So why were they changed?

To that, Google noted a blog post from March saying:

We think “Promoted Videos” more accurately describes this program than “Sponsored Videos,” the original name.

I was also told that “Promoted” was determined to be more descriptive and appropriate.

Determined how? Google wouldn’t share that. So maybe there was some testing done to see if users understood that “Promoted” better explained that these are ads. Or maybe a product team decided “Promoted” got a better clickthrough than “Sponsored” because people did NOT realize these were ads.

Google has massively ramped up where and how it shows ads over the past year. As the company continues to grow, it also has people without a firm history of knowing why ads are separated from search results and why certain words have been used to indicate what’s an ad and what’s not. Calling something “Promoted” that’s an ad in one part of Google while it’s “Sponsored” in another isn’t consistent and generates confusion. Mixing ads into editorial results also potentially generates confusion. Neither makes me feel particular good, but hey, maybe that’s just me.

The Google Base blog announced the launch of the new Google Merchant Center. This is the location for you to “upload your feeds, check on the status of your items, and get information on the performance of your listings.”

The Merchant Center is replacing Google Base for those who submit products to Google. This new portal is designed around product listings and submitting data for product listings. Transitioning between Google Base and Merchant Center should be very easy, Google said they would automatically show your existing data feeds, items, FTP settings and other data in the new Merchant Center, based on your login.

Again, the Google Merchant Center replaces Google Base for anyone who uses Google Base to submit product data to Google. For anyone else, submitting anything else, stick with Google Base.

Plus, there is a new Google Merchant Blog.

The Google Base Blog announced they have added a new attribute for Google Product Search merchants to submit product videos for specific products. Google Product Search can now show videos from YouTube.

Here is a picture of the Nikon D90 with YouTube videos:

How do merchants get their videos to show up for Google Product Searches? When you submit your Google Base data feed, make sure to include the new youtube attribute. This will help Google determine if they should show a video for that product listing. Google said, “we can’t guarantee that submitted videos will be selected.” Either way, it is likely worth doing, if you have the videos to link to.

Google Product Search is the next Google search property to get its own flavor of search suggestions. Although there is no official post from Google on this feature, yet, we assume it uses a flavor of the search suggestion technology and adds Google’s product search query data.

Here is an example of a search suggestion from Google Product Search:

Hat tip to Google Operating System for spotting this.

Google has announced they have expanded Google Product Search for mobile to both Palm Pre and any mobile device with an internet connection based in the US, UK, Germany and South Korea.

To access Google Product Search on your mobile device, just visit google.com and click on shopping or go directly to www.google.com/m/products.

Google also added Google Suggest for iPhone and Android users. Here is a picture of how it looks on the iPhone:

Google has also posted a webmaster video on frequently asked questions on products via Google base, here it is:

Google Product Search for Mobile now has barcode scanning ability. The obvious convenience factor is that, rather than typing in the name of the product you’re looking at, you can just scan the barcode and get shopping results (and information) on your Android-powered phone.

Google’s announcement today explains that barcode scanning currently is at its best with products like books, movies, electronics, and video games. Google says they’re working on adding more barcode types.

The new Barcode Scanner is available in the US and UK on Android-powered devices only — there’s no iPhone equivalent from Google on this tool. As we were trading emails on this earlier, Barry Schwartz pointed out that there are a few barcode scanning apps for the iPhone, but the camera doesn’t take clear enough photos to make the scanning effective.

Google has upgraded product search for mobile, on Android and iPhone devices, to allow users to get price, product specs and reviews information on their handsets. Google posted about it here.

Users can either navigate directly to Google Shopping on their smartphone handsets (under the “more” pull-down) and enter a query or do the same in the main mobile search box and then scroll to the “Shopping Results” on the main SERP. Either way you are sent into a new, optimized mobile shopping experience. Under an “options” pull-down in the upper right of the mobile screen, you can sort by price, ratings, brands and stores (online only for now).

Here’s the associated Google video demo:

Many people are using their handsets in stores to check price and product reviews to validate that the item they’re standing in front of is worthy and/or not substantially cheaper online. There are a growing number of mobile shopping apps and sites contemplating this use case. Among Android apps, the best known is ShopSavvy, which features a bar code scanner that takes advantage of the phone’s camera to deliver price, reviews and local inventory data.

Yahoo Mobile also offers price and product information similar to what Google is doing. Recognizing the growing importance of mobile product search and price comparisons, every shopping engine and product reviews site will soon offer a mobile-optimized version of itself and/or an app.

Postscript: I neglected to mention that Live Search has offered comparable functionality since last year.

Google has dropped the “Shopping” link from the main top navigation on Google.com and replaced it with a “Video” link. What is the big deal? Well, in November 2007, Google did the exact reverse. They dropped the video link for products to replace it. Then Google renamed products to shopping but that link remained at the top.

Google has now brought back the video link, which has recently dropped the top viewed, top blogged and so on features from the home page of Google Video. We know Google Video also stopped allowing uploading directly to Google Video, so one may have thought Google was lessening the value of Google Video in exchange for YouTube – but maybe not.

Here is Google’s home page with the new video link:

Here is the Google home page with the old shopping link:

Hat tip to Gary Price for letting me know about this small but yet significant change.

Google’s official list of the most popular search activity for 2008, aka Zeitgeist, has yet to make its debut, but the search giant has been leaking out tasty tidbits of data to get us salivating for even more search data.

The fastest-rising search terms of 2008

1. Obama
2. Facebook
3. Att
4. iPhone
5. YouTube
6. Fox news
7. Palin
8. Beijing 2008
9. David Cook
10. Surf the channel

These queries have seen the most growth since 2007. It will be interesting to see which ones stick around for 2009, and compare scorecards at that point. Facebook, iPhone and YouTube are the most likely candidates, though Obama could prove to have some staying power. Sarah Palin, Beijing 2008 and American Idol David Cook are most likely to fall off the radar screen.

Holiday gift-giving with Google

In honor of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2008, Google Base posted the early trends appearing in millions of searches for the most popular gifts so far this holiday season.  In addition to the overall list of popular products, Google reported cold weather apparel including branded searches for “north face jacket” and “burton jacket”, as well as wacky searches for “ugly christmas sweaters” and “dog sweaters”.

Top gift / product searches overall

1. nintendo wii
2. wii fit
3. ipod touch
4. xbox 360
5. nintendo ds
6. ipod nano
7. uggs
8. nikon d90
9. zune
10. digital picture frame

The Google Holiday Shopping guide breaks down more popular gift categories on Google Product Search, including the Top 10 searches for Video Games & Toys, Winter Apparel and Specialty Foods. Bonus savings offers are being extended to shoppers who use Google Checkout at hundreds of partner retailers.

Do-It-Yourself trendspotting at Google

Until the official 2008 Zeitgeist is available, the research tools at both Google Insights and Google Trends are simple ways to look up the popularity of a topic (no matter how obscure), compare web search volume for different personalities or websites over the course of 2008, or a single day or month.

While Microsoft closed its book search service to focus on search with “high consumer intent,” Google’s gone the opposite way and expanded its book search service in one of the most consumer-driven search verticals, product search.

Google Operating System reports that Google has integrated Google Book Search directly into Google Product Search. That means, when you search for a book in Google Product Search, you might find a link to “Preview this book on Google Book Search” and also “Related Books” in a tab below.

Here is a screen shot of Google Product Search showing the “Preview this book on Google Book Search” link: