Amazon is already the first place most US consumers start to research product purchases online. But now a new study shows just how hard Amazon is working to lure searchers away from Google by trying to dominate search engine results when consumers search for products.
The data, from Searchmetics, shows that even when Amazon already has the first result on Google for product related searches, it has at least one other (and sometimes more than one) organic result in 45% of cases.
Similarly, even when it has the top organic result, Amazon will have its product images displayed almost every time Google includes Images results on the same page (Images boxes appear for around 44% of searches when Amazon is ranked top and Amazon has at least one product image in 95% of the Images boxes shown).
Amazon also uses Google AdWords and Google Shopping ads very effectively to help ensure it makes multiple appearances on the first page when it already has the first organic result.
For example, the data shows that paid AdWords listings appear for 27.5% of searches when Amazon ranks on the 1st organic position, and 19.8% of the ads that appear underneath the organic listings are placed by Amazon, as are 12.9% of the ads that appear above the organic listings.
Google Shopping ads are displayed for well over half (56%) of keywords, for which Amazon occupies the top organic ranking slot – which means that Amazon’s organic snippet is competing for searchers’ attention with the carousel of product offers shown in the Google Shopping ad units. However, Amazon itself appears in the Google Shopping box for 31.1% of the keywords analyzed.
“In recent years Amazon and Google have been battling to dominate online product discovery, but Amazon’s market position at the top of consumers’ minds means that Google cannot afford not to rate its pages as relevant for product searches,” said Stephen Bench-Capon, Content Marketing Manager at Searchmetrics.
“The data shows that Amazon’s huge product portfolio and resources are helping it successfully own a large amount of the additional space on the SERPs for which it already commands the top organic ranking position. Amazon performs strongly in image integrations and wins many additional organic results, as well as buying heavily into Google Shopping and Google AdWords paid text listings.
“Of course, from Google’s point of view, Amazon’s extensive participation in its ad services is not only a major source of revenue, but evidence that Amazon isn’t prepared to bid farewell to Google search as a source of customers.”
The finding from the study are written up on the Searchmetrics blog
About the data
Searchmetrics analyzed the first page of Google.com search results for 10,000 transactional keywords for which amazon.com ranks with the number one organic result. Brand searches, i.e. keywords containing the term “amazon”, were removed. The study focused on desktop searches and the data was gathered January 2020.
