Now this new merchant search feature by Google is going to scare the hell out of a LOT of people, including several of my own clients.

According to insiderview they are trialling this for secured loans only (in the UK only) but will target more financial services like loans, credit cards and insurance are highly competitive.

Again they are (ab)using their search portal for placing #1 spots to their own inhouse products as you can see here

and while the resulting comparison page has the charme of a 1997 website, they will probably send a TON of traffic to the best priced merchants…

of course if you are that dominant in traffic and have tenfolds of traffic that other sites might aquire you can save the conversion rate optimization for later I assume

Now that google is selling links, vacations and even loans – what’s left and next? a freelance coder service portal?

PS: I’m off to Seattle for the SMX now.