Kills Free Product Search - Switching Completely to 'Paid Inclusion'

Google shocked merchants worldwide when they announced their decision to discontinue free Google Product Search and switch completely over to a pay for inclusion model called Google Shopping based off their Product Listing Ads service.

Google's reasoning for the change is that if merchants have to pay to have content displayed in Google Shopping, they will be more diligent in updating and maintaining their data feeds, meaning the shopper will have the most up to date information. Let's not discuss how diligent merchants already have to be in order to even be included in Google's product search to begin with.

Removing a completely free service and replacing it with a paid only service has never been Google's style. In fact this is the first time they've done this, and they've even publicly frowned upon this exact model in the past. Google stands to make a lot of money from this. Google saw an opportunity to monetize a product and decided to take advantage of that opportunity.

The real problem we need to be worried about is how realistic the worst case scenario is. Google found one service they figure they could get away with charging people money to use, but what's next? What if everyone's Place Page required a monthly fee? Or if showing up in Google Maps cost money?

Think of all the free Google services you utilize today that you'd have to consider paying for in the future. After all, Google is probably the most effective marketing service for the value.

However, with all this negative news and angry ranting, there's just as much of a positive reaction from merchants that use Google's product search and always hoped for more. With a free service that includes everyone, merchants have less control over the exposure of their products. The new model...