I am new to Google Base/Froogle, but i thought if nothing else it would get a few visitors to my site. I understand that Base has taken over from Froogle and that I have to upload my items to Base not Froogle, which I did 5 days ago. They are now published and searchable on Base, great I thought, but why do they not appear when I search for them on Froogle ? If Froogle is no more, why is it still linked to from Google's home page with no direct link to Base ?
Could you give me your site & a few product examples to check? I have no problems with mine showing in Froogle & Base.
My Google Base site is titled : 'Brambles Chine, Isle of Wight Self Catering - www.wight-self-catering.co.uk' (maybe a bit long but I thought the more keywords the better). Basically I have 30 products listed, but they are just 30 different weeks rental for my holiday home on the Isle of Wight next summer. Searching on Base for 'Brambles Chine' (name of holiday village) or 'Isle of Wight Self Catering' all 30 of my weeks appear. In fact they are the only search results returned. Same search on Froogle produces absolutely nothing ! It's really frustrating because normal users (potential clients) will only be searching via Froogle as it is the only link from Google's front page, unless you list products you wouldn't know what Base was.
I think I found your problem. Products: You must be able to ship your products throughout the United States. All items for sale, and any landing pages for these items, must list prices in US dollars. I guess G Base doesn't have this restriction.
Thanks drhfinegifts for finding that out. It may be kind of difficult to ship my holiday home to the US however. Does this apply to Froogle UK too ? My rental is open to the US, in fact worldwide, but obviously some travelling is involved. Do you know if there is anyway I can configure my bulk upload to include anything that would get it listed in Froogle either UK or US ?
I would think it might work in Froogle UK, but most listings in Froogle are actual tangible products. Most services are listed in Google Base. My suggestion is to actually email Froogle support and see what they tell you. You should get a reply back in just a couple of days.
WOW ! that was quick they have come back to me already. This is their response : Thank you for the email. I've taken a look at your account. It looks like your items are live on Google Base. As you mentioned, they are not currently live on Froogle UK. Our system currently only displays items on Froogle UK if they are of the "Products" or "Vehicles" item types. It looks like you have selected "Travel Packages" as your item type. To ensure that your items will be displayed on Froogle UK, please either re-create your items or re-register your bulk upload as one of these two item types. Please submit your bulk upload again with these corrections. This will resolve the issue. Sounds reasonable, I'll make the changes and try again.
This just gets better. Google Base has now disapproved my Bulk Upload because they are of an 'incorrect item type'. I have uploaded them as Products this time instead of Travel Packages just as their support resulolution suggested. They have now told me to re-upload them as Travel Packages, so basically back to square one ! Looks like there is no way I can get my items migrated to Froogle !!!!! And as far as I can see Google Base is a complete waste of time !!!
I would suggest putting them on eBay then. You will probably get loads more people looking at your offers!
Yeah, I have used eBay before with a lot more sucess than Froogle. I just thought that Froogle would bring a bit more traffic to my site. Since my last post thought I didn't give up, I replied to Google support expressing my amazement that they had told me to Upload as Products and then disapproved them. They have now very kindly agreed to approve them as products and once again they are searchable in Google Base. However after 2 days they are still not searchable in Froogle, maybe i'll just play the waiting game and see what happens.