On the eve of December 11, 2002 the news broke. Google did the unimaginable, or to some, the very troubling. Google begat Froogle, a beta shopping search engine with a focus on finding product web pages, and allowing users to sort by relevancy or price. Advantages:
Froogle: Product Search Engine for Online Stores
Using the content of the Yahoo Stores sites as a seed, Froogle has accumulated product pages from many major and minor online retailers. Froogle continues to add to its database of product pages through Froogle Feed submissions and inclusion of other major online retail sites and hosting groups. Froogle search users simply type in any term they wish and a mix of product pages from these different stores are displayed, ordered by the Froogle algorithm. The Froogle algorithm is a specific set of criteria which Froogle looks for to determine how relevant a product page is for the searched for term. By default only one product is displayed per store; the algorithm deciding which one is the most relevant out of all matching pages to display.
For Internet marketers hungry for more traffic, Froogle brings the qualified traffic to another level. On Froogle people are not only actively searching for product information, but are only searching through product pages that have online purchasing and prices. Only pages that sell the product are intended to be present in it’s index. On Froogle you won’t be competing with information sites, government organizations or popular forums, just other merchants selling the same or similar products.
How Froogle Stands Apart from Other Online Shopping Sources
Froogle encroaches upon territory occupied by major shopping search engines and comparison shopping bots such as MySimon, Pricescan and Dealtime. One of the major differences between Froogle and most other popular online shopping aids is that Froogle does not have any way to differentiate the trustworthiness of the vendors presented in it’s search engine results. Froogle simply ranks pages on the Web that contain product sale information using a relevancy algorithm that analyzes web pages, not editorials, reviews, or testimonials. The other major difference is that the relevancy algorithm used by Froogle currently does not include any preferential payment options for high ranking in it’s listings. You cannot pay for higher rankings on Froogle, the only advertising opportunity are the syndicated Adwords boxes lining the right side of the search engine results.
Undiscovered Territory in Internet Marketing
A look through Froogle results for different searches reveal only the original Yahoo! Store web sites crawled, online retailers seem to be slow in taking advantage of Froogle’s results. Search Engine Marketers and Optimization Professionals now have another channel to help clients gain exposure for their products. Through maintaining Froogle Feeds and perhaps optimizing product pages for clients, many online retailers can extend their exposure and effectively combat competition from eating into sales, at least for the time being. Web savvy online marketers have a new battlefield in which to fight for coverage, and may indeed need the help of search engine marketers or in house webmasters to set up a Froogle Feed or implement Froogle friendly product page design. When considering Google’s already staggering popularity, and the initial work sunk into the Froogle Beta to date, Froogle seems like a good bet to stick around and be a substantial force in online shopping referrals, and possibly a substantial part of your online marketing efforts.
As Froogle grows from its beta into maturity, Internet marketing professionals concerned with online product promotion are working with Froogle’s results to better understand how they can add update and add new products. Additionally, they will learn early on the proper techniques needed to keep competition at bay.
Froogle Inclusion
There are two ways for inclusion, either let your site be spidered by Google for Froogle inclusion, hoping it reaches all of your products pages to determine the correct information for your product line or submit a Froogle Feed.
Spidered by Google
To be spidered for Froogle your store should be well represented in Google – with all of your product pages in its index. Being part of a large group of hosted merchants, most notably being a Yahoo! Store, should also get you special spidering treatment from Froogle. Larger or more aggressive retailers not part of a special merchant grouping such as Yahoo! Stores may have trouble getting their products represented and should consider using the Froogle Feed.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
If you are going the spidered-by-Google approach take these precautions to ensure Froogle lists your products as accurately as possible:
Distinguishing your product name is key, try placing your product name in an HTML tag all its own, such as a Headline or Paragraph tag.
Having your product image in a different frame or table than your product name, or having too many images near the product name may confuse Froogle and possibly result in no product image at all.
Froogle Feed
The Froogle Feed is a tab delimited text file you create and upload to Google. The file you use to feed Froogle contains information you input about your site’s product names, prices, descriptions, associated images and model information. You can get more information about the Feed requirements, plus login information by following the instructions given at http://froogle.google.com/froogle/merchants.html#feed. Looking at the feed instructions provided by Google, plans are in the works for more fields of information to allow merchants more options, such as setting a “quantity left”, “size”, or “color”. How or if Google implements these in its Froogle results still waits to be seen.
To be accepted as a Froogle Feed candidate you must adhere to certain criteria.
Current Froogle rules are:
Disadvantages:
Speculating on Froogle Ranking:
First and foremost, what Froogle associates most as being important is the product name. Having a product name which matches the product keyword phrase being typed in by prospective customers is as important as optimizing a title tag for general search engine optimization.
Other factors are subtler, and fairly inconclusive without a much larger data set. However, it would seem that Froogle prefers stores that have multiple listings for the same keyword, and most entries had fairly healthy PageRanks. Since this is a Google search product beta you can be sure that as they are able to mine more data with the Feed and spidering that more factors will factor into ranking at the top.
If currently optimizing for Froogle, the focus should be on making the product name as distinguished as possible – placement in Title, ALT tag, Headline Tag and Body Text. Use a full keyword phrase when writing your product name, such as the manufacturer, model number, product type as applicable. In example, go for “Manuf 14.4v Cordless Drill 3455HK” when placing the product name in the product page, as opposed to just “cordless drill”. Using this approach will maximize your keyword phrase product coverage (i.e. searches on “manuf drill”, “14.4v cordless drill”) without diluting your product name too much.
Experience Froogle for yourself.
Lisa Wehr is the founder of Oneupweb.com and has specialized in search engine positioning since 1996. With 20 years in marketing and new media planning, she has led the development and online promotion of hundreds of highly visible projects. Wehr is a private consultant to many Fortune 500 clients advising them of the best approaches to effective e-marketing. Wehr takes an active role in the management of client projects and her leadership in the development of new services and techniques continues to set Oneupweb apart. Oneupweb is 100% dedicated to providing top tier, spam free SEOP services to clients such as Verizon, Broyhill, Unisys, Quaker, Equifax, Motorola, Kimberly-Clark, United Technologies, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and many more.
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