On April 18, 2007, the Internet search giant Google announced that it will be rebranding their product search web site “Froogle” as “Google Product Search” as well as making other usability changes. Google launched Froogle in 2002 but has seen “slow” growth for this search portal, something Google is unfamiliar with. The poorly named Froogle had issues from the very beginning. Google’s vice president of search product and user experience, Marissa Mayer, told CNET News.com that they didn’t understand the complications with rolling out another brand and although it was a unique and clever name, a combination of the words frugal and Google, it had issues with copyright and trademark, as was as internationalization as non-American users may not understand the combination of words.
As Google has grown to dominate the search industry, it has gone from a smaller whimsical approach to a more professional and business like plan. The original naming of Froogle demonstrates this transition. Although Froogle wasn’t completely a sinking ship, it definitely did not have the success and popularity that Google is known for. Google realized this and removed the link to Froogle from their main page last year. With a fresh name and new approach to product search, Google is hoping to see better results. Users can still use Google Product Search for just looking for products but the top products will also be included in the main site’s search results above the organic search listings.
Google has also run into mixed results with the Google Base, the site that is used to feed content into their Product Search. Google Base has been around since 2005 but most users are not sure what it is used for. Base, which refers to database, is a tool used by product sellers to list their items as well as additional information about these items. Many different types of businesses can use Google Base for advertising their items. Everything retail may be listed in Google Base but also real estate listings and job advertisements. Google Base is not strongly used but if you’re looking for the right thing, you might see them show up in your search results. If there is enough data about a certain car or real estate market location you are searching for, the Google Base results may show up on your search engine results page. But, if there are not very many Google Base entries for whatever you are searching, the chances are that the Google Base results will not be included in your search results.
Google will also use this new Product Search to promote their Google Checkout feature. Users will be able to filter just on merchants who participate in Google Checkout. Many search experts believe that an integration of all of Google’s search options may someday be included with Google’s main site. So one search will show results from the web as well as Google Product Search, Google Video, Google News and other search options. Google Product Search is yet to be released to the public but with the success rate of Google, you can expect it to do much better than the previously named Froogle.
