I wouldn't say I'm "fooled" by it. I'm well aware that Google's ranking algorithms take into account payment; they are a company after all and adverts are their main source of revenue.
I wasn't aware that all of the products featured in their shopping search were paid for, but thinking about it it does make sense. Online stores are going to be difficult to properly crawl for products, as each one uses a different method of displaying them.
I'll still use the Google product search, because it works. I take issue with your complaint that it disadvantages smaller retailers; I've used it to find sites which are the very definition of small retailer, and I don't see how I could have found them otherwise.
I still disagree with you that these are ads that need to be blocked. Ad blockers are useful for blocking intrusive adverts. Blocking links to places where adverts are displayed is silly; there's nothing intrusive about a link, and if you don't use the product search, you aren't going to click the link in the first place. Besides, do you similarly block all links to eBay, because eBay charges you to list products, and each product listing is an advert. My point being, the entire purpose of the "Shopping" site is to display links to products that you might want to buy, just like regular retailers.
I wasn't aware that all of the products featured in their shopping search were paid for, but thinking about it it does make sense. Online stores are going to be difficult to properly crawl for products, as each one uses a different method of displaying them.
I'll still use the Google product search, because it works. I take issue with your complaint that it disadvantages smaller retailers; I've used it to find sites which are the very definition of small retailer, and I don't see how I could have found them otherwise.
I still disagree with you that these are ads that need to be blocked. Ad blockers are useful for blocking intrusive adverts. Blocking links to places where adverts are displayed is silly; there's nothing intrusive about a link, and if you don't use the product search, you aren't going to click the link in the first place. Besides, do you similarly block all links to eBay, because eBay charges you to list products, and each product listing is an advert. My point being, the entire purpose of the "Shopping" site is to display links to products that you might want to buy, just like regular retailers.
