冬日购物捞钱季在即，谷歌放弃不作恶信条

    每年冬天的节日季对各地的零售商而言都是关键时刻。假期间的销售业绩往往决定了企业全年是盈利还是亏损。网上有一家公司虽然不销售商品，却仍然在此期间赚得盆满钵满，这就是互联网搜索和广告巨头谷歌（Google）。

    长期以来，谷歌的业绩都会在第四季度出现上扬，因为此时广告主会格外大方的购买广告，吸引客户。今年，谷歌有望从电子商务热潮中获得比以往更高的收益，而这部分要归功于它的购物搜索引擎。谷歌的购物搜索与它的常规搜索不同，搜索结果完全由付费广告组成。Jefferies & Company的最新分析显示，谷歌的购物搜索业务受到了零售商的大力追捧。

    在美国，所谓的产品列表广告（product listing ads, PLAs）的数量比一年前翻了一番；而在英国，此类广告的数量增长了130％。Jefferies公司称：“它使谷歌能从可靠的假期电子商务趋势中收获回报。”

    这些广告一直饱受争议。谷歌成立初期，拉里•佩奇和谢尔盖曾经发表过一段著名的言论：如果在搜索引擎中允许广告商通过付费展现，势必将影响自然搜索结果。谷歌创始人的这番话可以理解为“竞价排名生而不公”。

    不过，就在一年多前，已在购物搜索领域沉浮多年的谷歌终于决定彻底变革，开始要求零售商为搜索结果付费。对此，搜索领域资深分析师、SearchEngineLand网站编辑丹尼•苏利文称，这个改变“让人震惊、看起来很糟糕”。谷歌的死对头微软（Microsoft）反应更加强烈，它发起了一场针对谷歌的运动，高喊“别被谷歌骗了”的口号。微软语重心长地提醒大家，佩奇和布林允许竞价排名干扰搜索结果，同时号召大家使用自己的必应（Bing），获得公正的搜索结果。

    去年，笔者曾询问过佩奇产品列表广告是否有失公允，他表示反对。（佩奇2011年被任命为谷歌首席执行官。）他表示购物搜索的结果参考了“竞价模型”，能为谷歌的购物搜索引擎提供更精准的信息。

    The winter holiday season is crunch time for retailers everywhere. Often, it's the difference between a profitable year and one that ends in the red. On the Web, one company is not selling goods, but still profiting handsomely anyway: Google.

    The Internet search and advertising giant has long seen an uptick in business in the fourth quarter, as advertisers spend extra to lure customers. This year, Google (GOOG) appears poised to benefit more than ever from the e-commerce boom, thanks in part to its shopping search engine. Unlike its regular search results, its shopping results are made entirely of paid ads, and retailers have embraced them with a vengeance, according to a new analysis by Jefferies & Company.

    In the United States, the number of so-called product listing ads, or PLAs, has doubled from a year ago, whereas in the United Kingdom, it has grown by 130%. "This positions Google to benefit from solid holiday eCommerce trends," Jefferies said.

    The ads have been controversial. In Google's early days, founders Larry Page and Sergey famously said that allowing advertisers to pay to be listed in a search engine would lead to bias in search results. The practice, also known as "paid inclusion," was inherently "evil," in the words of the company's founders.

    But a little more than a year ago, Google, which had long struggled to gain traction in shopping searches, did an about face, and began requiring retailers who wanted to be included in its shopping results to pay up. Danny Sullivan, a veteran search analyst and the editor of SearchEngineLand, called it a "stunning change" that "looked bad." Microsoft (MSFT), Google's perennial rival, went a step further, launching an anti-Google campaign with the tag line "don't get scroogled." The campaign reminded consumers of the Page and Brin promise on paid inclusion and urged them to switch to Bing for honest product search results.

    Last year, when I asked Page whether PLAs are evil, he demurred. (He became CEO in 2011.) He described the change in shopping results to a "bid model" as necessary to bring accurate information to Google's product search.