I feel like I should be on Froogle’s payroll (but I’m not – and please note that there are no AdSense or YPN ads on my site). When I wrote about Froogle’s spam problem on December 4, the search results for an iPod nano were so bad that I told consumers and merchants to stay away from Froogle this holiday season. Froogle then cleaned up the search results a little bit, getting rid of one egregious offender.
I followed up my original Froogle spam post with another post entitled Froogle – Leftover Spam, again critiquing the iPod nano search results because there were multiple duplicate stores, a number of eBay expired auctions, and numerous out of stock listings. Looks like Froogle once again paid attention.
The one listing I’ve used as an example has gone from 225 prices to 101 prices to 29 prices; Froogle got rid of all the eBay listings and most of the spam is gone. Froogle could refine the results even more as there are still a number of Amazon affiliates with basically the same listing and MacMall, ClubMac, PC Mall, iBuyDigital, ISS Electronics, DirectDial.com are all listed twice.
While the improvements are welcome, the iPod nano example is just the tip of the iceberg and therefore I’m not changing my opinion of the site. Do a seach for ‘digital camera‘ and you come up with a ton of other issues – in general, any Froogle listing that has over 100 prices and has a large price range seems to have problems.
And since I’m not on Froogle’s payroll, the company’s PR department hasn’t reached out to me this week, and I have more interesting things to write about…Froogle is just going to have to do their dirty work themselves.
Oh, one interesting tidbit, Froogle (as of this morning) lists aproximately 26,500,000 eBay auctions.
Previous Froogle posts:
Froogle – Leftover Spam – December 7, 2005
Froogle Spam – December 4, 2005
Froogle Local Follies – December 4, 2005
Froogle Updates Site – October 19, 2005
A Couple Words from Froogle – September 11, 2005
I think they will hire you soon…Good work!!
I disagree with telling Merchants to stay away from Froogle. It is good converting free traffic. If you find a better place to spend that kind of money give me a call.
JP
http://www.bargainbetty.com
I think merchants are better served by first optimizing their listings on one of the major shopping comparison engines (Yahoo! Shopping, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, etc.) which have more traffic and higher quality results.
While merchants spend a lot of time on search engine optimization (SEO), they don’t spend a lot of time on datafeed optimization. First optimize on the other comparison engines. If you have time left over, deal with a Froogle feed.
I’m beginning to think that I’m on the GoogleBase payroll so I know what you mean. In my Clip Art category, these spammers keep appearing again and again. I keep reporting them, but I don’t know why can’t GoogleBase block their ip addresses.
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Ok, so maybe you are doing something different than i am, but how do you come up with 29 prices for the Ipod Nano? My search criteria consisted of: allintitle:”ipod nano” > Apple , and I received 8,532 results. I understand you stated 29 PRICES, and NOT results, but how do you find the # of different prices among 8,532 results?
http://snipurl.com/kn2y
Good site- I check it often, not as a merchant but as a casual interest.
Brian -
Good post… I agree, Froogle definately needs more work
Try searching for [17" LCD]
It doesn’t get clean until you do stuff like this:
[17" LCD -mount -tv -filter -refurbished]
Even then I get back results that are below $10 and don’t make any sense:
- Bookshelf Speaker Mounting Kit
- Memorex 2 GB 2nd Generation USB 2.0 Travel Drive
>It is good converting free traffic.
JP, I don’t know any retailers making money with Froogle do you? I’ve been posting inventory there for nearly 2 years and Froogle is good for 1 sale per month on average.
Paul – thanks for reading. Click on the link ‘one listing I’ve used as an example’ used above to see the specific ipod nano result page i’m talking about. Or, in the URL you sent me, what I mean by prices is the ‘compare 20 prices’ button next to each product listing.
Vic – You can definitely make money through Froogle. I’m just saying that I’d dedicate your time and effort to optimizing listings on the other comparison engines first and then if you have time left over, deal wit Froogle. If you need help with your Froogle feed, shoot me an email (as long as you’re spending the bulk of your time on your other feeds)!
I started as a beta client at Froogle – they used our catalog at Overstock.com to help model the service and understand retail and product data feeds. Froogle has definitely been a non-starter for the last two years. I do know of one retailer for who Froogle is finally taking off at a good clip. Also, it is free, the feed is easy and Google gives you a simple, intelligent interface (better info than some of the other big comparison engines) to let you know the status of your feed. Did I mention it is free?
Granted, I agree Froogle is not optimal, a bad user experience and poor results today. However, I also know that Google is way ahead of the thought curve on this one (they are way ahead on their thinking on many fronts) and is poised to take Froogle and Base in 2006 and rock the retail world. Net net, good Q4 for them (best yet revenue wise despite all the nit-picky shortcomings) but I predict earth shattering stuff coming out of that shop no later that Q2.
I am curious to know – What category you are selling in Vic?
JP
http://www.bargainbetty.com
I work for a large online consumer electronics retailer. If our experience this holiday season is typical, then your recommendation to focus on other Shopping Engines over Froogle is SUICIDE!
Shopping engines raised their price by 67% over the last year. They are driving significantly more traffic, but the quality of their traffic is SIGNIFICANTLY worse.
In fact, our shopping engine conversion rate was down by 35% and the average order is almost $40 lower than last year. So our costs doubled and sales declined!
Compare this to Froogle, where traffic was up 40%, conversion was up 10% and sales were up 55%.
[...] I was critical of Froogle and Google Base back in December of 2005, writing a series of posts: Froogle Spam, Froogle Leftover Spam, and Cleaning up Froogle – One Post at a Time. [...]