Google wants to make sure when searchers download a piece of software that they are downloading from the legitimate resource and not from a third-party site that often piggybacks spyware and changes default search and browser settings.
Google has added new knowledge cards to the search results that are triggered when someone searches for “<software name> download.”
Each card is simple. It features company name, official URL, large logo and a link to go directly to the download.
Here are some more examples of other types of software that trigger the search:
They seem to trigger for all major software downloads.
Bing has recently stepped up their offerings for downloadable software by adding links to their knowledge panel for various software but they are taking a different angle on it. They also added download numbers for when they are displayed in the search results. While they also link to the official source, they also link to the CNET download version, a site which often bundles spyware and changes various search and browser settings too. And we have found that the CNET version of these downloads can actually rank higher than the official homepage too.
We also tried the “download spotify” search on Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo to see how likely it was a user would be able to download safely from the official site. Surprisingly, Yahoo was the only one to deliver the official site as the first result, which appeared as an ad above the search results, although Spotify also claimed the top spot in organic.
However, it had a huge list of third party download sites on the right hand sidebar ad list.
Bing’s top result, an ad, was from a site that not only requires you download their “download manager” to install Spotify, it also states – in tiny print – what is essentially a recipe to destroy the usefulness of your computer.
During the download and installation of Spotify the download manager will offer to you additional software or products including toolbars, browser add-ons and other types of software applications which you may be interested in. You have the choice and are not required to install any additional software to receive your selected software.
The second ad and the first organic link is to the official site.
DuckDuckGo also served two similar spyware-laden options as the first two results, before showing the official site.
Google definitely has the superior option from the perspective of saving users from themselves when it comes to downloading software. In fact, we didn’t see any AdWords ads at all form third party sites offering sketchy downloads of the software we searched for.
That said, it will also hurt those third party websites who make their money by bundling spyware, adware and all kinds of other viruses and registry edits when they do get a clueless user downloading from them.
Google only shows them for searches on specific downloads. They don’t show for more generic queries such as “download browser.”
Bing also recently made changes to the way they
Jennifer Slegg
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