Looks like Google is rolling out more tests with integrating results from its Shopping / Product Search engine (former Froogle) in traditional web search queries, right before the start of the holiday period. This isn’t necessarily new (see this WebMasterWorld forum entry from November 2007), but it does appear to be more widespread now. Our tipster says he’s had 5 of his friends test queries like ‘bed sheets’, and they all saw the changes, although sometimes after about a dozen times of hitting ‘Refresh’.
I’m not able to reproduce this, but it might have something to do with the fact that I’m not based in the US. If the images I embedded below are in fact real, this shows Google is getting very serious about creating a nice direct gateway for Google Checkout partners.
(Thanks to Mike Cohen for the tip and the screenshots)