Forum Moderators: open
GoogleGuy, I think your right about the affiliate sites, I noticed the page I clicked on was not ebay until I was 3 clicks in.
I think what nipear is referring to, is that with the price on display, it is too easy for merchants to attract traffic with a competitive price, while maintaining their ROI through raised shipping prices. Most would rather listen to people to bitch about shipping costs than endure silence and empty log files.
nipear: As a small merchant I think this has the ability to be a great service, especially with the free data feed. It just depends how google ranks sites, and products.
I am a small merchant and this is my exact fear too. Once they get the International feeds in it will be interesting to see how things rank and if, although hopefully not, the usual band of top companies dominate almost every result and the little guys are on page forgetaboutit.
Will the products shown on Froogle include fixed-price services? Say someone was selling, oh I dunno, say online training courses of some sort -- would that be a "product" that would be acceptable for Froogle? Or is it gizmos only?
<typo correction>
I think if it is that simple, and is open to all on an equal basis, I will have to eat a little humble pie.
Call me a pessimist, but I always expect a snag. There shouldn't be one... all are my products... but there are certainly potential glitches (eg: I use ShareIT to collect the dosh - they are simply a 3rd party processer for credit cards).
I hope not though... Google have been a relative stalwart at keeping that window open and free for all, when some engines have sold out completely (trying hard not to mention MSN... but failing). I'd hate to see slippage.
I think that it may be a long time before any of us see anything but an automated response "thank you" from Google. My guess is that they want to look at every site that submits to make sure that it fits the criteria they have set forth.
I imagine that they would have to set up a merchant account in their database for a specific site before they would send instructions. The reason being is that if all they did was send out a file format, there is nothing stopping anyone of us (besides the moderators) from posting that file format and the FTP address of where to send it too. I can guarantee that if all they need is a tab-delimited file, I'll have it to them in one hour after I get the file layout (simply query). When they get the feed from me, or anyone else, you can be sure they are going to interigate whether or not it is coming from an approved merchant.
I think it's best for us to all sit tight and wait for a repy, because it may be a while.
Jaeden
quinn -
Most would rather listen to people to bitch about shipping costs than endure silence and empty log files.
MeditationMan, that's a great question. I'll play it safe for now and say it's probably for physical gizmos for now. If I find out otherwise, I'll try to post though. You could try making a product page for your site and seeing what happens. :)
Napoleon, I'm hoping that we'll be able to handle sites like yours. I know that the folks from Froogle will be working very hard to tackle issues like these.
I would like to see more sorting options (if possible):
1. Sort by price
2. Sort by first term(s) in returns. That is, if I search on 'fuji digital camera', sort all 'Fuji FinePix...' results together, allowing me to easily compare returns for that model.
3. I think it would be great if review sites for products were available, as well as just sales sites.
MeditationMan, that's a great question. I'll play it safe for now and say it's probably for physical gizmos for now. If I find out otherwise, I'll try to post though. You could try making a product page for your site and seeing what happens.
Thanks,
I already have product pages, and I'm looking forward to getting the data feed form so I can submit them. Hopefully they'll be accepted!
We have several commerce clients who are already in Froogle, and we're pleased with that. :)
However, they would all (obviously) be served best by providing a data feed.
Do we need to submit separate requests for each client, or can we submit one and use the information appropriately for each client?
(Hope I asked that correctly....)
I think that this is the greatest play for ecommerce yet and once all of the bugs are ironed out that this will revolutionize online shopping making the end users quest for product specific searches a reality. I only wish I would have had this utility before I bought my Klipsch Reference series speakers :)
Thanks Google for making Google even greater
EquityMind
Google user since Google Beta - November 1998 (back then I thought I had died and gone to heaven, now I'm feeling that euphoria once again).
My site (profile) doesn't seem to display any images! My images do show in the regular google images searches though... hmmmm... obviously they have to size the image to the google thumb size - maybe its a parameter issue?
>>>>Answers own question - my images are right click protected....
did they select a few lucky ones and hand them the golden key? Or are they just using the google index and modifying the results to display as product listing. Of course this is beta and things are being worked out.
It certainly woke a lot of us up.
Does anybody have an idea on how things are "ranked." We hold #1 for several of our KWs... yet we cannot be found in froogle... so what is going on?
Also notice that there is no www2 or www3 for Froogle :)
Seriously folks, if this thing is just in Beta, I'm sure they don't have that many people assigned to it. It may be a long time before we get an answer from google on how to do the data feed.
Seriously folks, if this thing is just in Beta, I'm sure they don't have that many people assigned to it. It may be a long time before we get an answer from google on how to do the data feed.
GoogleGuy, am I correct in assuming that Google has to do some followup to verify the existance and legitimacy of the company before it will allow it to start a data feed? Since that would take manual intervention, would you expect it may take more than a day or so to get an answer?
They're a big online retailer that's signed up with Commission Junction. They were all over what I looked up also. Ummmm.. the reason you've never heard of them is that they're not generally found in the regular SERPs.
Outfits like that generally don't do well in search engines and rely heavily on affiliate marketers. Their appearance in Froogle must be as a result of the FEED.
What is that feed, anyway? Is it anything like Inktomi's feed? How does that work, can someone describe it for those of us not familiar with the technology?
MeditationMan, that's a great question. I'll play it safe for now and say it's probably for physical gizmos for now. If I find out otherwise, I'll try to post though. You could try making a product page for your site and seeing what happens.
Hey GoogleGuy,
Froogle beat us both to it. I did a bit more digging around and found that one of my online courses is listed. So you're carrying online services already.
Cool!
Well, you'll have to forgive my ignorance in these matters because I'm totally clueless about such things, and for that reason I could be dreadfully mistaken, but if that feed is what I think it is, they might have to change the name to Cloakle.
FERPs, FEO, Cloakle...
I see this (as of this moment) as a potentially great opportunity. G's track record, while not perfect, is second to none in their industry. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it won't be intentionally skewed against the little guy.
It would be nice to hear more details on the feed other than "The first step is to create, in our feed format, a tab-delimited text file..."
What's the format?
What (if any) is the store approval process?
What's to keep me from feeding everything at lower prices, ala bait & switch?
What shopping carts work/don't work well?
Is G Catalog search going to be rolled into this?
rmjvol
they are a commercial company that get so much free advice, it's unbelievable.
notice how google uses infantile language and baby toy colors...it's complete genius. remember bill gates using the word "cool" to describe stuff and how he looked like a mad genius kid? that's the way to go, the inherent naivity of children - when you sell a product and
next time i need 400 posts of free advice and comment on a new product i'll think of this for my logos and my PR policy.
also note how their PR guy, GoogleGuy, is so trained on getting free advice. making a corporation seem like an old friend of yours.
anyway congratulations Googleguy on both your PR skills and the new engine. I guess if I had 80% of the information retrieval power on the web i wouldn't be afraid to crush some affiliates and small merchants off the face of the planet either.
Microsoft wasn't mercyful on anyone in their path and I don't think Google should be either, specially with this kind of skill in getting so much free advice on these forums. congrats.
I love it. :)
Wow, you guys are tough.
rmjvol
