The second cost is associated with sponsored content on the right. This is simply a collection of pay-per-click ads. Not all ads are direct leads for Michael Kors, the ones that are they will pay for directly, and those that are not will be paid for by their retail agents.

The third way Michael Kors will have paid to dominate page one is through their search engine optimisation (SEO). They do not pay Google directly to optimise their ranking in the organic search, but there is a significant cost associated SEO which involves generating relevant content and inbound links on each website page that will drive the Google algorithms to rank these pages top for any given keyword.

So, page one domination on Google is expensive, but large brands have the budget to do this and it pays them to crush competition and establish brand dominance or brand oligopolies. They effectively push the smaller retailers towards obscurity in the bottom of the search rankings onto pages where users rarely venture.

In the pay-per-click world the little guys cannot afford to ‘buy’ page one since their sales revenues cannot support large advertising spend or clever marketing departments and agencies. The snake oil salesmen are always ready to guarantee SEO top rankings and pay-per-click alchemy, but the reality is it is tough. True, some small retailers can break through with low-cost viral campaigns to get noticed, and with clever choices of niche keywords they may top the ads for some Google searches. However, the reality is that most are rightly focussed on producing quality products and not on clever marketing – and so they use alternative channels to gain sales. Consequently, Google is not good at matching the right products with willing buyers, but they don’t care because their revenues are not directly based on sales, they are based on clicks.

The places to find products from the smaller retailers and unknown brands is in marketplaces where they only pay a commission on sale (which they are usually happy to do) – they are not paying for eyeballs or for clicks that do not convert into sales. The major marketplaces include eBay, Amazon and Etsy, but there are many others. Amazon actually overtook Google for product searches in 2017.

What has happened is that over time the small retailers competing in the same sectors as large brands have abandoned their (often futile) efforts with general search engines and instead listed their products on alternative retail sites. Search users have learned that they are being underserved by Google when they are shopping and now conduct their product searching across multiple retailers and marketplaces.  

This current model is not great for internet users or small retailers, nor is it an efficient model even for large brands and retailers. Would it not be better to apply today’s AI efforts towards finding the thing that users want, instead of trying to make them want your thing.