Google: Checkout This

The inclusion of a Google Checkout vendor-oriented link in search results has already drawn criticism from some prominent bloggers. "Why does this promotion need to be in the main Google search results? What benefit is it providing Google searchers?" wondered Danny Sullivan of the blog Search Engine Land. "I see nothing in that line that's seriously designed to help the search experience. I see only Google self-interest in doing it."

Google may well respond that the Checkout search link allows users to narrow down the list to destinations that allow for the quick, easy purchase of items the user is searching for. But the search giant doesn't need to furnish a pat answer in the future. Google's monomaniacal focus on the search experience was a business decision rooted in a time when the company had only one real product.

As its stable of products grows, the benefits of being able to promote its choicest products will outweigh the small cost of crowding its home page or search results. Recently, the company seems to have dropped maps from rivals like Mapquest and Yahoo! for users searching for locations, choosing instead to solely feature its highly successful Google Maps products.

In the future, the company will grow increasingly likely to tell critics of decisions like the one made with Maps to just get lost.