For Google, it pays to be evil during the holidays

On the Web, one company is not selling goods, but still profiting handsomely from the winter holiday season anyway: Google.

The company has long seen an uptick in business in the fourth quarter, as advertisers spend extra to lure customers. Google appears poised to benefit more than ever from the e-commerce boom, thanks in part to its shopping search engine. Unlike its regular search results, its shopping results are made entirely of paid ads, and retailers have embraced them with a vengeance, according to a new analysis by Jefferies & Company. In the United States, the number of so-called product listing ads, or PLAs, has doubled from 2012, whereas in the United Kingdom, it has grown by 130%. "This positions Google to benefit from solid holiday eCommerce trends," Jefferies said. In 2012, when I asked Page whether PLAs are evil, he described the change in shopping results to a "bid model" as necessary to bring accurate information to Google's product search. Evil or not, the ads have been embraced by consumers and merchants alike. Jefferies said that for every dollar retailers spend on a product ad, they generate $9 in sales, on average.