Google is not doing too well according to this article - http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-21631837.htm in regards to its Product Search. An eg given was the drop of October 2007 traffic compared to October 2006 of a massive 76%. Google it appears is relying on the "If we build it they will come" mentality. Doing a normal search for something, eg a toy sometimes brings up the Sponsored Links followed by Google Product results (eg http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&hs=bWc&q=dollhouse&btnG=Search ) which also makes being on the first page of Google much less effective for those selling those same items. Is it time for it to go - Would you miss it if it went, do you even use it?
They have some of the best advertising out there, to top of the page in google. I think it's the way it's designed personally. When you click the link it should take you right to the site.
They're changing the name of it again too - I see now the link is 'shopping' wich makes more sense. The problem it has is most people don't know it exists or what it's for. - Look at this subforum - Google Product Search? There are more threads that think it's about any product that google makes, than there are that know it's about Google Product Seach/froogle/Google base.
I'm not sure about the Product Search even remaining. It started as Froogle then Google Base, then Product Search and now it seem they renamed it again. After all this time it's still in beta? Could it turn out to be another orphaned product?
I think is great from both a user and a developer point of view. I get lots of click throughs and a high conversion. Only complaint, when buying there are a lot of sites i would never trust. It needs a way of filtering out the rubbish websites.
It's a great idea with a few problems. I think the traffic drop is due to removing the products quicklink directly from google.com. It used to be you could flip between web and products searches with a link on the main google page, it's now buried way down in a submenu and is impossible to find. Second, agreed on junk sites. Worse they don't seem to regulate people that blatantly violate the rules by publishing artificially low prices which require enormous quantities or handling/service fees. Their blog pretty clearly states prices listed must be for the minimum quantities purchasable but many use the last column pricing which really makes every listing for that product useless. If 10% violate the rules that's tons of wasted clicks and eventually people just stop using it which is what has happened now. I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on an item that seems to have a great price only to find I have to buy 5,000 of them, pay a $50 handling charge and five other fees, meanwhile I didn't click on the other links that probably played by the rules. Google needs to adopt and enforce the rules clearly and it could still be a success, otherwise you'll just continue with more of the same.
I agree! Froogle sounds much better. I don't think it will ever be orphaned. Look at the competitors. MSN has recently launched a product search trial (It s**ks like hell). They wouldn't do it withouth a belief in a bright future of product search as such. As to Google, they are still working to develop the tool. Yeah, it has taken a lot of time but... according to the latest rumours they are trying to add more regional versions. Now there are three: USA, UK and DE. I am getting pretty decent traffic from USA version and I am launching the UK and DE feeds very soon to give it a test.
Google could make this a reasonable success by just putting it back at the top of the www.google.com page "Products" and by policing their participants. If everyone follows the rules it will become useful again. Most are using products to find the best price/value combination and when you have people blatantly violating the rules it makes the entire thing useless.