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Paid placement and/or referrals. The "Why these cards?" link explains:

"We are compensated by some of these issuers. Card features, performance and user interest are used to sort these cards."

Money is a driver. Google can either take 1 USD) per click or 5 dollar from the credit card companies. They're cutting out the middle man, other comparison websites. I wouldn't think they do it for the benefit of users or because users asked for the service.

) I don't know that the current adsense price for query term on credit cards is

more like $60 - $180 per credit card signup + $$ for just getting people to apply. Given the high volume of traffic Google can drive, I'm sure they'll get the best commissions from banks.

It looks like the commission is all they're after too, since it's not possible to sort by things like 'Sign Up Bonus', which would be useful to consumers.

Google's tool is new to me as well, but it doesn't seem to be very good for comparing card rewards programs. I like the nerdwallet site for that: http://www.nerdwallet.com/