Froogle - What is it good for?
by Ed Kohler
Have you been to Froogle yet? It’s a new product search engine from Google. It’s actually existed for almost a year now, but it only went live as a link from Google’s homepage in the past month. It's quite possibly the greatest online marketing tool for retailers ever invented. What is Froogle? Froogle is a product specific search engine that indexes catalogs of online retailers and compiles the information for their users. Search for DVD Players, and you’ll come up with 37,000 options as of this writing. You can then filter down to DVD Players between $200-300 and still have 581 choices. Want a DVD/VCR combo? Add VCR to the search query to filter down to 209 options, and then sort by price with one click. That should explain the power of this program for consumers, but how do retailers make the most out of this by getting in front of their prospective customers for the products they sell? The Froogle Feed While Froogle will likely visit your catalog, index it, and add the products to their search engine, the better way to go is to send Froogle a data feed. This is basically a text file listing your product names, descriptions, pricing information, images, and the URL of each product within your cart. This will help Froogle accurately serve your cart's products with up to date pricing.. What does it cost? Nothing. Submitting to Froogle is free, and you can do it as often as once a day (but at least once a month). Google has also stated that they plan to keep Froogle free by serving Google Adwords ads alongside the Froogle search results. How do I build a Froogle Feed? After signing up with Froogle, they will send you an extensive set of instructions on how to create a Froogle feed. If you have a small set of products, you could easily whip up a Froogle feed in a spreadsheet like Excel, then save it as a text file for upload to Froogle. However, if you have a large inventory with volatile pricing, you’ll probably want to look into exporting a Froogle feed from your database. One way to do this is to have your webmaster script a tab delimited file on your in-stock inventory so you can easily save it off and load it whenever you make changes. If you want to turn that up another notch, have your webmaster script your Froogle feed to automatically FTP itself on a regular schedule. Get Froogling If you have an online catalog and aren’t Froogling you’re passing up additional sales. Sign up with Froogle today and get your Froogle on.
Ed Kohler is president of Haystack In A Needle and creates Froogle Feeds for his clients. Contact Ed today to get Froogling.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
More Online Business Help Articles
More By Developer Shed  developerWorks - FREE Tools!
|
David Barnes, Lead Evangelist for IBM Emerging Internet Technologies will discuss aspects of Web 2.0 that bring value to corporations, academia, and government. He'll also discuss IBM's vision around Web 2.0, including the importance of remixability and consumability. The discussion will culminate with examples of various IBM Software Group solutions you can use to get ahead of the Web 2.0 adoption curve.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
WebSphere Process Server delivers a unique integration framework that simplifies existing IT resources. Often, as IT assets grow to support business demand, so too does their complexity and manageability. In this webcast, we’ll discuss how WebSphere Process Server helps deliver an SOA infrastructure that provides a common model to orchestrate, mediate, connect, map, and execute the underlying IT functions. Discover how WebSphere Process Server simplifies integration of business processes by leveraging existing IT assets as reusable services without the complexities of traditional integration methodologies.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
Join this webcast to see how IBM Data Studio Developer and pureQuery can take the pain out of Java data access. uApplications developed using both Java and SQL have become a common requirement. Database connectivity using Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) to create an application is a multi-step tedious process, and tooling that covers both SQL and Java has been unavailable, until now. IBM Data Studio introduces the pureQuery platform: a high-performance, Java data access platform focused on simplifying the tasks of developing, managing, and optimizing database applications and services.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
This tutorial shows new users of IBM WebSphere Business Monitor Version 6.0.2 how to perform the "Hello World" equivalent for monitoring business process applications. It is intended to help you get familiar with the capabilities of the product.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
Analysts, architects, and developers who have existing COBOL or PL/I skills and want to extend those skills to deploy new workloads on the mainframe can use the IBM Enterprise Modernization Sandbox for System z to find hands-on walkthroughs of common real world scenarios. The scenarios provide examples of how to rapidly design, create, assemble, test, and deploy high-quality Web, Web services, portal, and SOA applications for IBM CICS, IBM IMS, and IBM WebSphere Application Server.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
Rational Modeling Extension for Microsoft .NET enhances usability for code generation supporting a more intelligent refactoring. The latest enhancements enable organizations with Java and .NET systems and software development maintain architectural integrity across heterogeneous platforms.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
Discover how Rational tools and best practices for testing can make your job easier. The new Rational Testing eKits provide you with valuable resources – including demos, webcasts, tutorials, and articles – that help you address your specific testing needs across the software lifecycle. Five new eKits are available covering the topics of Requirements and Test Management, Functional Testing, Performance Testing, Code Quality and Embedded Systems, and SOA and Web Services Testing.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
Get a free trial download of the latest version of IBM Rational Performance Tester V7.0.1, a load and performance testing solution for teams concerned about the scalability of their Web-based applications. Combining multiple ease-of-use features with granular detail, Rational Performance Tester simplifies the test-creation, load-generation and data-collection processes that help teams ensure the ability of their applications to accommodate required user loads.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
In this webcast, you'll get an introduction to the eXtreme Transaction Processing (XTP) features of WebSphere Extended Deployment and the common architectural traits required by XTP applications. See how WebSphere Extended Deployment's ObjectGrid feature provides a state-of-the-art infrastructure for hosting XTP applications.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
User communities play an important role in communication and collaboration around products, solutions and other areas of special interest to members. Successful communities are able to provide the right mix of content and services to deliver a value proposition that resonates with each audience. Join Tom Inman, VP of Marketing for Information and Platform Solutions as he introduces the new LeverageINFORMATION community. During this webcast, learn about the value provided by the community and how customers and partners derive value from the community in addressing their own technical and business challenges.
FREE! Go There Now!
| | | |
All FREE IBM® developerWorks Tools!
| |
