Top keyword as fake product on Google Shopping

[CaterTrade]

I've just done a search on google for my top desired keywords E.g. Commercial Widgets and have found a competitor with those keywords as a fake product in the google shopping results. This is getting them to position three on page one but in the little embedded google shopping thing. Is this a good idea or totally abusing the system and bad bad bad?

[OldWelshGuy]

if they are spamming then report it to google. If they are spamming adwords, or products, then google will come down hard ont hem especially if they are selling fake items.

[CaterTrade]

Well it's not a fake item, its just not a real item. Here's the link to explain what I mean

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=2h&oq=&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_en-GBGB317GB317&q=catering+equipment

Have a look at the shopping results, the third result down. The product is called Catering Equipment - Huge Range

If it is considered spamming then I won't bother contacting the google base team as they've never acted on things I've reported in the past and probably won't now.

[David Peters]

If somebody is fooling the Google system by adding the fake products on shopping site, then it is definitely spamming. You should definitely report to Google about it.

[evilonion]

i'm a bit confused by this post...
You say its a fake item, but the search term is so generic that there are hardly any actual items in the shopping results.

There is a full suite for a few k, other than that im seeing a credit report, and then ads to link to catering websites for equipment.

and the link you point to directs me to a very large catering equipment site where i can buy everything i need...

now should i narrow the search a bit to something like catering equipment oven
i get these results:
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=catering+equipment+oven&hl=en-GB

[CaterTrade]

The company concerned just contacted me saying they've removed the item.

Basically it was a google shopping product they'd uploaded purely for the SEO benefits of the keywords they used in the product title. The product was called 'Catering Equipment' (my most competative key phrase) and wasn't a real product you could buy. Google in their ignorance put this product in one of those Google shopping results boxes in the organics on page 1. Very cheeky but you've got to give them credit for trying.

[Alliance]

Hi guys

I've discussed this with CaterTrade, this was the PM I sent...

I wondered how long I could get away with the "fake" product in the Google base feed. It was something I thought Google would come down on me for, I suppose they would in the end.

You don't need to report it, I've just removed it from the base feed and manually uploaded the new one. :)

It was interesting though, it opens up a quite easy way to manipulate the results for some keywords - if only for a limited time!

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Google suddenly starting showing those indented shopping results for the keyword 'catering equipment'. This seemed odd itself because I thought they only showed shopping results when you searched for more long-tail product names, not broad keywords.

Anyway, as you can see, it worked.

Technically, the only thing I was bending the rules about was the price. I couldn't find a way to put the price as 'From £...' - which they probably don't allow for this very reason!

Traffic wasn't all that amazing, by the way. We got maybe an extra 15 clicks per day from that keyword.

It is quite an interesting debate though, which evilonion has highlighted. I only tried it because I noticed Google was now showing shopping results for such a broad keyword.

I'm sure it would be pulled eventually but does get you up there for a limited time.

[Alliance]

Beat me to the post CaterTrade!

[CaterTrade]

Just trying to explain it a bit better and probably failing. For some reason it's not easy to explain what you did.

[Alliance]

I cheated :(

The end.