Good by to Froogle and Hello Google Product Search.

Google does not charge for inclusion in its search results or accept payment for better placement.

Back in December 2002, Google launched its long expected product and shopping search engine. It was called Froogle, a combination of “frugal” and “Google.” Just over four years later, Froogle is finally losing its cutesy name for something more descriptive — to become Google Product Search. It will also gain a cleaner interface, as well.

Clearly merchants thinking about Google Product Search listings will need to consider offering Google Checkout as an option even more than before. Meanwhile, the new partnership where PayPal is being promoted at Yahoo makes me think we’ll see a similar option eventually come to Yahoo Shopping, the ability to filter by PayPal Express Checkout. Merchants may find they need to enroll in both programs (which I think is perfectly fine) in order to maintain visibility.

I’ve personally never found Google Product search all that useful, but hopefully that will change now. Google Operating System reports that Google Product Search has undergone a redesign of some sort.

In the past, Google Product Search just showed you results but did not group stores offering to sell the same product with reviews and technical specifications. Now, for some searches, Google groups store results, shows reviews on Google, and also shows product specifications.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.