Has anyone noticed a correlation between how often you update your feed and how you rank in the froogle results? I'm wondering if updating more often will result in better results. As long as it takes for a feed to go live though, I find it unlikely that frequency would matter that much.
From my understanding and observation updating your feed more often is better. If you let the feed get about a month old you tend to go down in the serps of froogle.
From my Feed instructions: Product data will automatically expire from Froogle after one month, so you must upload a new feed at least once a month to keep your products active. They recommend uploading the feed whenever you have price changes or product updates. I usually send one every week or when we have major pricing changes.
Ok, I understand all of that, but It seems to me I get quite a bit more traffic from google for a couple days after I do a feed and it goes online. Even if I have less products and higher prices I get more traffic right after a new feed goes online. If I have added a lot of products I get even more of a bump, but it's only a bump. I'm not sure if it's me, or if froogle gives a new feed a "boost" for a couple of days.
An obvious question, but not an obvious answer. The truth is I can't compete on froogle right now becasue of Overstock.com. They sell a lot of the same stuff for about the prices I'm buying it at. My position in froogle isn't really relevant right now. Right now I'm focused on driving traffic to the site. That means SEO for google, msn, yahoo, etc. I'm having some success with msn, but yahoo doesn't seem to have any idea of how to spider a site, and google is so big it takes longer to work your way up. I'm not even in the top 100 yet on any of my keywords. I hope they do at least a BL update soon so all the links I've built since the last one will get picked up. Once I start generating enough sales I can access some better suppliers and my prices will go down quite a bit, a lot in fact. When that happens having already established a presence in Froogle will come in handy.
Ouch! That really sucks! Home depot stores sell some (very limited amount) of the stuff I sell. Some of our customers will go to the store and find stuff at the same or a better price. And since they're in the store they'll just buy it and save on the freight (but pay taxes). This is such a small amount though...it doesn't really make a dent. Yet, I still worry about it. Damn, I feel bad for you! Sorry, but I think it's time for you to gamble.
I'm already gambling. I'm gambling I can find a way to drive traffic to my site from somewhere other than froogle that won't cost me more than I have to spend. It's working, I'm starting to see some results from all the SEO I've been doing. I still have more to do, but for the past couple of days google has been my #1 referer. It's still not much traffic, but it's a step in the right direction. If they ever get around to doing a BL and/or PR update I should start doing better.