are there no organic listings at all? or is it just that there are now way more paid listings so the first page is entirely paid placements? thats a pretty big difference.
I recall that when froogle/google-shopping first launched they were just filling in content from search results because they didn't have very much direct engagement by vendors. maybe that's changed now so the search results were just scaled back because not necessary.
I dunno. I'm willing to accept non-nefarious explanations for this. That doesn't mean it isn't on the whole better for google and their paid advertisers. Whether or not that also means its worse for consumers is an open question.
It looks like it was because of stale product data in shopping
>We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date. Higher quality data—whether it’s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availability—should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for merchants.
This makes sense. I stopped using google shopping a long time ago precisely because it seemed like so many of the results were junk for whatever reason (staleness is a likely reason). "Junk" meaning the search result did not lead to an option to actually buy the product I was searching for. I haven't tried it since then, so I can't comment on if it's actually better now or if it's due to these changes.
I recall that when froogle/google-shopping first launched they were just filling in content from search results because they didn't have very much direct engagement by vendors. maybe that's changed now so the search results were just scaled back because not necessary.
I dunno. I'm willing to accept non-nefarious explanations for this. That doesn't mean it isn't on the whole better for google and their paid advertisers. Whether or not that also means its worse for consumers is an open question.