Google Checkout Desperation

I went to login to my Google Checkout account today. For some reason instead of clicking on my bookmark, I did a search for Google Checkout and clicked on the link. Something really caught my eye with the Google Checkout listing in Google.

Google doesn’t even have their own listing as the title for Google Checkout in the SERPS. They are advertising an auction company (hibidder.com) in the title of the Google Checkout listing.

Andy Beal recently blogged about Google Checkout taking a dive after their $10 and $30 coupons went away. Coincidentally I had commented about how Paypal was able to get very large only because of the wide use of eBay, and that without a site like eBay, Google Checkout would have a hard time catching on. It looks to me that Google may be thinking the same thing, and that they are trying to get users away from ebay and onto sites that support their own payment system.

I cant believe that Google would do something this seemingly desperate. In addition to this, it also looks like they had manually changed their title in the SERPS, as nowhere in the Google Checkout Homepage does any of the altered title text appear.