What's the latest with Froogle?

anyone getting any traffic? noticed any updates?

[Namaste]

Just checking to see if you guys(and girls) have noticed any movement on the Froogle front. I can't see any traffic and even their results look stale to me.

[BlobFisk]

Namaste Namaste!

We send a very regular feed to froogle for one of our clients, and looking at the logs, they don't even appear in the top 20 referrers list.

The amount of traffic we're getting from the is negligable. I don't think that the froogle phenomenon has quite yet worked it's way to the regular user yet.

[Grumpus]

I get about 6-8 hits a day from them. Nothing much. I don't send them a feed and haven't really played with it much other than pasting a few refering URLS into my browser to see where I rank for fun.

I agree with BlobFisk - the average surfer doesn't even know Froogle exists, yet. Google was smart, though, they put it up at such a time where they have exactly 1 year to work out the bugs before "shopping season" comes back.

G.

[jpavery]

Uploading feeds on a weekly basis - inserting a unique string... first time it too 24 hr to show - and the next time it took 36 hrs...

[EliteWeb]

I used froogle to order some printer accessories yesterday, the other service which compares prices didnt offer me the low prices froogle found. now i just hope the place i ordered from actually ships me the products!

[Neo541]

I have gotten a whopping ONE hit since my feed showed up about a week ago. I don't really expect any traffic until it gets out of beta though

[Napoleon]

As far as I am aware it is not even officially launched yet.

I'd prefer they got it right, with proper content in the niches, before they launch. I suspect that's what they are doing - still populating it. Absolutely the right approach I reckon.

[Sunny]

International Appeal!

Well, I am not in US, but my site is all in English, and I do display my prices in US Dollars, and I can very well ship my products from within US itself (since the server is right within USA), am I not eligible for inclusion into Froogle?

(Froogle help pages bar international merchants only 'cos they don't meet the above 3 criteria)

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Sunny

[Namaste]

Sunny, I don't think they bar internationally registered merchants who sell & ship in the US with US$ billing. Have they officially denied you?

Any internationally regsitered merchants here featuring on Froogle?

Also, is anyone here experiencing any fresh updates of non-feed data? I am not. Seems like only feed data is getting updated.

[Xiaoliao]

do you think it would be a good place to search and compare proudcts for buyers? if so, it will go bad to the affiliates, google would go off with a big share of the sales. I think the world should not be dominated by just a group, they are monopolistic, it is very very bad!

[KevinC]

I think Froogle will be great - that is if they ever add my feed.

[sun818]

Been averaging about one hit per day. I like the extra traffic :)

[bcc1234]

Today, I had my first sale from a froogle referral. So it's alive guys :)

added:
What's interesting is the fact that the visitor first came from somewhat broad query where that particular item was distinctive from other listings on the page.
About half an hour later, that visitor typed a narrow query with the item description. That page listed 5 identical items from several stores. There were two above me with higher prices and two below me with lower prices, but the visitor went in and ordered from me.

[SAGuy]

I have been listing nicely but I suspect that we will not see substantial sales until they officially launch. I am still wondering if they are going to charge some type of affiliate fee. Our data feed took about 10 days to load completely. It seemed to come through in sections. Now it seems to be complete.

I noticed that one user mentioned there seemed to be some conflict between prices offered on Froogle and what was actually on the site. It will be of interest in the future if Froogle penalizes sites that do that given that you can upload feed. In other words you could upload a feed with one set of prices and show another on the site. This opens the system to abuse. Time will tell.

[Lingerboy]

I have 8000+ listings, and I'm not seeing anything worthwhile....but, if they add the feed to Google...to the moon!

[bcc1234]

This opens the system to abuse.

I think if you put a lower price in the feed - you'll just get many visitors pissed at you and no conversions. So you'll penalize yourself in a way :)

[Namaste]

This opens the system to abuse

a better way around this is to shift focus to crawl, rather than data feed. Let them publish guidelines for making sites crawl friendly.

[SAGuy]

It is my view that a combination of Feed and crawl is probably best. However I tend to think that the reason Google wants some interaction with site owners (i.e. The data feed program) is so that they can introduce some type of billing program in the future. Without a solid identification of who is responsible for the listing it is impossible to receive revenues. Up to now Google has generated all of its revenues from renting its search results, technologies and selling ads. However I foresee Google aiming towards additional revenue streams via an affiliate program where they share in the sales of their Froogle vendors. In order to set up a Froogle data feed they assign you a unique username and password. Basically they are in the initial phases of having you establish an account with them. I can see the day in the not too distant future where we will be asked for a credit card number or billing address. Time will tell.

[GarryBoyd]

As a buyer of stuff, rather than a seller, froogle does not offer the prepurchase security you get from the price comparison sites. Take camera gear, there are some really BAD merchants out there, with low listed prices and bait n switch tactics. I might look around on froogle, but I'm going to check the user reviews of the store out first before I purchase. So while I use froogle, it may not be the referrer in the end.

[SAGuy]

When do you think Google will add Froogle to its main search page like for example "images" or "news"?