Google Checkout Badges For AdWords Ads To Be Removed Imminently!

On google.com at least anyway – and google.co.uk will follow shortly no doubt…

*Update – 2nd June 7:11 am BST – I can confirm they have now disappeared from google.co.uk search results.*

Here is an email from Google :-

Hello,

Please be aware that beginning on June 2, 2011, the Google Checkout badge will no longer appear on your ads on Google search results.

We’re making this change to improve the user experience on Google search results pages.

For more information, please visit https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=1323905

Sincerely,

The Google Checkout Team

© 2011 Google Ireland Ltd, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Checkout account.

I thought this was some sort of elaborate joke at first – but the Google link in the email is genuine.

Thanks for the 3 hours of notice Google ! :-(

This is a real kick in the teeth for all those e-commerce sites that went through the painful process of implementing Google Checkout and jumping through all the hoops required to get these badges!

This really really beggars belief…

Obviously this has been done to make room for ‘Plus One’ buttons. Well Google, I hope it was worth it when you find that millions of e-commerce sites remove the Google Checkout option tomorrow!

By the way – you can now permanently erase the following post about how great Google Checkout is from your memories!

AND – furthermore – from now on, when sending out electronic invoices to clients, I will make sure I always use Paypal rather than Google Checkout!

3 thoughts on “Google Checkout Badges For AdWords Ads To Be Removed Imminently!

  1. John says:

    Well I’ve been considering adding Google Checkout just to get the logo. Thank goodness I didn’t bother.

    I’d like to get the gold stars next to my ads though. Do I need Google Checkout for those?

  2. Jordan says:

    You don’t need Google Checkout to get the gold stars – but it is one of the easier ways to get them.
    Typically of Google , they don’t give you a list of third party review sites that they use. But a few examples I have found are :-

    trustpilot.co.uk
    reviewcentre.com
    viewpoints.com
    rateitall.com
    ciao.co.uk
    dooyoo.co.uk

    I guess you can have a look at your competitors and see where they are getting their reviews from and copy them…

  3. Melanie says:

    Is it legel of Google giving advantage to websites using their checkout; All adwords customers paying loads of adwords fee and if they do not use Google check out, they do not get the checkout stars next to their adv.
    We had taken a lot of pain eventually get a badge on adwords, we did not have choice, that big badge and stars obviously making the adv budget more efficient. And now it disappeared. is it a trick? We asked Google why our reviews rate not shown along with our adv either, they send links of their Google articles to read which does not give a clue.
    It is really awful experience with Google checkout.

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