UPDATE:

ANSWER: NO

Thanks to Barry Schwartz for sending me this link to Inside AdWords.  The article explains that what I am seeing in the screenshots below is not ‘Product Extension’ ads but “Product Listing Ads” (limited US only Beta). Makes more sense to see competitors tagging along when I learned more about these ads.

………………………………………………..

Last week when researching for a client I found a strange ‘tag along’ link on an AdWords ad that is running Product Extension and pulling data from the Google Merchant Center.  The ad displayed had a extra link and price from Kmart.

.

How is Kmart Tagging Along on the Primo AdWords Ad? (note: the Kmart link sent me to a product page that had been removed or moved but you get the jist)

.

Originally I wanted to call this a ‘related product’ beta, similar to the  ’Related search results’ displayed on the Google Search Network as described in the two Search Engine Roundtable articles posted on June 18, 2010 and June 28, 2010.  However, I thought that out and this is not a ‘related product’ it is a direct competitor, for the same exact product and the price is listed along with the ad.hots below outline the search query and results returned by Google.

Another sample:

.

This Ad Has Two Extra Links & Price Info – Both links lead to the same exact product at their respective websites.

.

And yet another when searching for ‘ipods’.

..

Competitors ads Tagging Along? – Why Does Walmart have 3 ads on one page?

.

This extra ‘related’ product link is for eCOST (dot) com.  Not exactly sure how Walmart wound up with 3 ads on one search results page and in turn eCOST ended up with two ‘tag alongs’.  While that has me curious and about to climb up on my soap box to rant about this going against Googles “user experience” principal, I am more interested in why the other links are tagging along with AdWords Product Extension ads.  Is that something we have control over?  I would prefer not to see my customers who use Product Extensions have their ads include competitor pricing info and links.

As  readers may or may not know the products shown in the screenshots above are from the Google Merchant Center which is “linked” through product extensions in the AdWords interface to pull Merchant Center data into the Sponsored Links section.  That is, when the advertiser has enabled product extensions and linked with their Merchant Center Account.  When visiting the Google Merchant Center and viewing products there are usually competitors products also shown below the main product results.  It *seems* like that is where the additional links and prices are being pulled from, however, it is only a guess.

Note: This is not something I am seeing on all Product Extensions ads just some, which has me thinking ‘beta’.

Looking for a comment from Google and will post when/if it is supplied.

Have you seen this?  Do you have info to share? Comments from our readers are always welcome!

……..

Posted by: Kim Clinkunbroomer, GAP

More about Kim and her Services

Free AdWords Webinar Series AdWords Hour – signup for mailing list.