Was having this discussion with a friend outside the forums the other day and thought I’d see what you guys thought…

He claimed that while attending an SEO conference earlier this year, he became buddy-buddies with a couple of the people behind Google Checkout…

and as the story goes…they told him that while officially using G Checkout isn’t supposed to favor you in the rankings, “it doesn’t hurt” so to say (ie- oin fact G will actually favor you)

Now at first I was a little skeptical but he reminded me that G is after all a business, and they do generate revenue through G Checkout…so it could be in their best interest to push sites that use their systems higher in the rankings (same could be said about their search function or any other Google tool that adds $ in G’s pockets)

Now I’m still not sold on this but must admit he has a point…anyone do any experimenting with this?

Other points of view?

Those discussions fall under old wives tales, an assortment of superstition, misinformation, and mistaken beliefs.

i'm inclined to agree with you but want to know why you say that? because you think G plays fair or?

I really don’t want to crawl out on that limb. If, and I mean if they took that into account the results would be unverifiable and immeasurable. In God I trust, but not Google, actually I don’t trust myself sometimes.

Nic wrote:

and as the story goes…they told him that while officially using G Checkout isn’t supposed to favor you in the rankings, “it doesn’t hurt” so to say (ie- oin fact G will actually favor you)

Well, having a SR logo on your site isn't supposed to favor U in the SERPs, but 'it doesn't hurt' .... I think I'd like to play poker with your friend, seems easy to bluff.

1. If such a thing ever got out it would cause major grief, and potential law suits for Google.. likely even some loss of investor faith. Al it takes is one disgruntled employee to spill the beans. So, this TOP SECRET information was passed as easily to your friend??? Hmmmmmm... Probably an over zealous sales person more than anything.

2. Ranking is ranking, there can only be a single #1 , #2 etc..... it would be no benefit ultimately once more than 10 ecommerce sites in a given market were on board with the scam....


Truly, it is a pile o steamin web lore. f your friend believes that in that short time he became a trusted confidant of upper management at G checkout to the point such a sensitive piece of information was imparted to him... methinks he has just had his ego stroked and smoke blown up his patootie.....

It is either a HEAVILY guarded secret ( so why risk consumer confidence just to tell him) or it is a selling point, so we should see it advertised on the G Checkout Sales pages.. which I haven't. So which is it?

Or could it just be some sales person fishing with yer mate and playing semantics with his wording? After all he did say -- 'it doesn't hurt'  ..well neither does walking my dog in the morning... though I am pretty sure 'it doesn't help' either.....

Google checkout is expensive, not as easy to implement and we already had a merchant account taking 10's of 1000's of pounds a day......

So why did we implement google checkout on some of our sites?

Simple, we use AdWords, a lot. With Checkout this has two benefits

1 - the more you spend on AdWords, the more free transactions you get on checkout
2 - our AdWords ads now have a nice logo on them highlighting the ads more than anything else on the SERPs page

Given our user demographics tend towards ads and not organic, this has been a big plus for us.

Users now have the opton of paying through our merchant payment gateway (all on site), google checkout or phoning our sales team

So, google checkout has certainly helped us, but not in terms of ranking.

Our CTR has improved, lowering our CPC. The google logo is starting to instill trust in the users and ou site conversions are increasing

while officially using G Checkout isn’t supposed to favor you in the rankings, “it doesn’t hurt” so to say (ie- oin fact G will actually favor you)

Fair enough, i believe it, but my interpretation is very different form yours

TheGypsy wrote:

Or could it just be some sales person fishing with yer mate and playing semantics with his wording? After all he did say -- 'it doesn't hurt'  ..well neither does walking my dog in the morning... though I am pretty sure 'it doesn't help' either.....

Actually, it does in fact help. Doesn't your doctor tell you to exercise?

Oh yeah..... Canadians get 'serviced' by candy stripers.

Anyways, I think everyone here has some really good assumptions/theories. But how about this.....

If you're using G checkout, then certainly G could pass just a little more 'trust' your way. After all, G is handling the credit card information, and I can only assume that G can actually 'trust' itself with that sensitive info.

But even if the 'passing more trust' was true, the theory itself is so paper thin, that I wouldn't even consider it in the most complex markets.

But I'll put this on the back burner for the time being, as I might switch check out systems on one of my sites. Is it any better than paypal??

If you're using G checkout, then certainly G could pass just a little more 'trust' your way. After all, G is handling the credit card information, and I can only assume that G can actually 'trust' itself with that sensitive info.

But even if the 'passing more trust' was true, the theory itself is so paper thin, that I wouldn't even consider it in the most complex markets.

Oh and having a PayPal button DOESN'T? Or somewhow the processor some smuck uses is a sign of trust??? Everyone in eccommerce uses some service... scammers alike...

I should get MORE of this so called 'trust' factor since PayPal is far more established.... Doh....

That's like saying that the Black Hatter site should get more love because they monetize it with AdSense ( which many of them do).....  uh huh... nice theory... bwaa ha ha ha ha....

Like I said, Google has enough lawsuits these days to be risking more grief by actually giving preference in the 'Natrual Organic' SERPs to people based on using a Google product.

How many of you shot to #1 in the SERPs by installing Google Analytics on your site? Does you site shoot up by a adding AdSense? Or participating in AdWords?

Even if it DID.. then everyone simply uses Google Checkout and the playing field is once again level since EVERYONE is getting a benefit in the SERPs.... only one winner.... Google.....

Bah Humbug... I can tell U now, that the person whom stated this ( from Google) would likely get in a heap o trouble if the boss knew about such sales tactics ... that's why he said 'it couldn't hurt'..... so he ain't exactly lying....

Uhm.... as I said, the theory would be 'paper thin'.

Paypal vs. G Checkout - What I'm referring to here is the fact that the person hosting the site is not collecting credit card numbers. In fact they never see them.... as apposed to someone using an on-site cart and merchant account. Nobody can account for the security at those places. Sure... you can get 'certified', which just means you 'pay off the mob'..... seriously.

Again tho..... paper thin......

Oh, yeah....

Forgot to mention adsense - it was in my mind when writing my previous reply.

AdSense, in my long experiance of PPC markets, certainly doesn't help with google rankings

Well, I couldn't resist posting this thread in my Thursday Beer Break
.... see what anyone else out there thinks... I wonder what we call that?? Googler Bait?

TheGypsy wrote:

Thursday Beer Break

Isn't it 11am there now??? Well in any case... 

Stitch...G vs PP.... any issues with offering both? If you can it may be better for you to offer your customers more options

Don't think I'd be willing to try that, as I'm also using an off-site shopping cart. That'll make things even more confusing.



Furthermore, I hate the way paypal tosses their logo every, really big, trying to force people to sign up. If you look hard enough, you'll see the little text link that reads "Don't have paypal? Click here."

Really annoying. But, I'm not seeing problems in that sector just yet. Still trying to get people to physically put something in the basket.

I've got some stuff I'm working on for the '08 season to fix that. Hopefully, the plans will work out.....

MrStitch wrote:

Furthermore, I hate the way paypal tosses their logo every, really big, trying to force people to sign up. If you look hard enough, you'll see the little text link that reads "Don't have paypal? Click here."

Tried the google one yet? Looks like your in your gmail account, making paypal look subtle