Google Commerce Search can be added to retail sites with functions such as shopping by category, price, brand or other attributes. Other features that can be added by a site administrator include a related items search. It automatically includes a synonym feature and a spellchecker.
Google hasn't published details of the pricing, saying that it is based on the number of products in a given data feed and the number of search enquiries made on the site each year.
On the official Google Blog, the engineers behind Google Commerce Search, Alex Dovlecel and Nicholas Weininger, cite research which says visitors spend an average of just eight seconds deciding whether or not to remain on a website.
Dovlecel and Weininger write: "Using a cloud search tool will help site owners meet the rise in demand from the holiday rush without having to devote extra time or resources to worrying about their capacity or infrastructure.
"Online retailers are free to focus on their business, while Google focuses on search, and shoppers can find what they need faster."