New PLA Test Spotted: Google Ranking Products By Reviews And Ratings

The team at CPC Strategy spotted a new test in the Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) last night. In a search for coffee grinders that was qualified with “best”, the PLAs were shown in order of a  numerical rankings system that appears to be factoring in the quality and quantity of each item’s ratings. In […]

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The team at CPC Strategy spotted a new test in the Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) last night. In a search for coffee grinders that was qualified with “best”, the PLAs were shown in order of a  numerical rankings system that appears to be factoring in the quality and quantity of each item’s ratings.

PLA Rankings Test Spotted By CPC Strategy

In the screenshot above, notice that #2 ranked Cuisinart Supreme has by far the most reviews at 312, but with a rating of 4 stars it loses out to 5-star rated Capresso Infinity which has 169 reviews. However, the Cuisinart Supreme is still able to outrank three items with 4.5 stars (De Longhi, Breville and Baratza Encore) which each have significantly fewer ratings than the Cuisinart with the Breville and Baratza with fewer than 50 each.

Similarly, looking at the Baratza Encore and Breville Smart, which rank 5th and 6th respectively, each has a rating of 4.5 stars, yet Baratza with 48 reviews ranks ahead of the Breveille with just 30 reviews.

CPC Strategy also noted that the test worked with the qualifier “top” as well and pointed out that the link to the Google Shopping portal says “Shop for top rated coffee grinders on Google” in the results for “best coffee grinders”.

I haven’t been able to replicate the test, yet, but Roman Fitch a retail specialist at CPC Strategy notes that the test seemed to be running on electronics and appliances. So keep your eyes out. We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will provide any update here.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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