The new service enables site owners to run a four-question survey in the lower right-hand corner of their web page.

Default questions are free. They are:

1. Overall, how satisfied are you with this website?
2. What, if anything, do you find frustrating or unappealing about this website?
3. What is your main reason for visiting this website today?
4. Did you successfully complete your main reason for visiting this website today?

Questions 1 and 4 are multiple choice, while 2 and 3 allow for user-defined responses. Customised questions are possible, but Google charges $0.01 per response.

Google Consumer Surveys (GCS) explains on its Google+ page that surveys will run until 500 responses are received. They will begin appearing again after 30 days in order to track responses over time.

As BrainJuicer’s Tom Ewing notes on his blog, “This is more of a shift than it looks for GCS. It’s a break – the first I think – with the ‘surveywall’ model, where publishers preserve free content for readers by making money direct from Google via survey publishing. Here there’s no specific benefit for readers.”

There are other planned changes in the pipeline for GCS. Speaking at the Insights Innovation Exchange conference in Philadelphia last week, product manager Paul McDonald said GCS would soon give users to the option to field five- and seven-question surveys, in addition to its standard two-question surveys.

• For more Google-related content, check out Mike Stevens’ comment piece, What would Google do with market research?