Boy thats a misleading title, but I do have a question and a thought on the subject.

The question: Does anyone have a clear plan on how to get within those first 3 listings that appear on the Google results page?

The thought: If I checked out the listing for a product before I uploaded a feed to Froogle, I would see the lowest price for that product and price my listing 1 penny lower. It seems to me that when a user sorts by price lowest to highest(who doesnt do that?) that my product listing would almost always be first. Any thoughts on that?

Don't want to distract from your question, but I think the question also needs to be asked "How does a Froogle listing get onto the Google (top 3) SERPs?"

Clearly not all the Froogle indexed products appear in Google. Can't seem to figure out how it decides.

This topic has been discussed in the other forums in the past.

I remember one, not sure if it is still accurate (its possible things changed since then). Here is how I summed up a thread at SEO Chat:

The basic premise is that Froogle pulls from the top matches for the three price ranges. According to Syragon, this means that they are looking at the low, medium and high price brackets and pulling one from each bracket. The ones selected from each bracket are the ones that are froogle optimized.

So how do I conduct Froogle optimization?
Both Egol and Syragon from SEO Chat discuss what they have seen that works for their Web sites. Egol says, "If you submit a datafeed the content of your site does not factor into your ranking. Instead your ranking is determined by the content of your data feed. The title of your listing and the exact text of your item description are the important things." And Syragon adds, "They select a low, middle, and high range for the top 3. When I say low middle and high I mean price range. They pick the "best match" from these 3 ranges and display them in order of lowest price to highest price."

from 02/20/04

And Syragon adds, "They select a low, middle, and high range for the top 3. When I say low middle and high I mean price range. They pick the "best match" from these 3 ranges and display them in order of lowest price to highest price."
from 02/20/04

Hi Barry:

With regard to 'low' and 'high,' are these ranges or is it the lowest and highest. In other words, would you be likely one of the 3 selected if you had the lowest or highest priced product for a given search term match?

I think its the low of the low, the low of the middle and the low of the high.

Does that make sense?

Maybe, if I have time, I'll build a program to analyze Froogle's data. That would be fun. :)

That would be terrific, Barry.

To my knowledge, you'd be the first. :)

Every since Google became less timid about promoting and finally a link on their homepage to Froogle, I've seen very pleasing results. For online merchants like myself, its the best deal in town (free). I think its popularity will continue to grow and it would be great to have a tool to analyze this stuff, rather than guessing.

You know what, I will put one of my developers on this project now.

Please let me know what data you think we should collect:

Keyword Search:
Results 1 - 20
For each result store: title, product name, url, price, page rank for the product landing page, product description, company name...

Anything else?

Boy, you do move fast. :)

In addition the fields you already mentioned, I was thinking we could get our low, medium, high question definitively answered by placing an educated guess next to each SERP result.

Example:

query=widget

Product Price PriceGroup (estimate)
Widget1 $10 low
Widget2 $11 low
Widget3 $12 low
Widget4 $13 medium
Widget5 $14 medium
Widget6 $15 medium
Widget7 $16 medium
Widget8 $17 high
Widget9 $18 high
Widget10 $19 high

It would also be really helpful to put, if possible, if any of the above were in the top 3 Google SERPs (for Froogle).

I still can't seem to figure out the pattern as to when Froogle decides to insert the results in Google.

For example, a search for "books" produces no reaction from Froogle.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=books

Where as search for "cookware" does.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cookware

There are more than 200 times more books listings than there are cookware listings in Froogle. Hmmm.

Also the rank in Google versus the rank in Froogle might prove very interesting as well to see if there is any correlation.

Love to help you out with BETA testing when you've got something pulled together. :)

Thanks for the help. If anyone else wants to chime in before I begin this project, let me know. This thread will make for the project specification and I hope to start it today. Of course you can beta test, once we have something ready. I do not think it is a major project, maybe a day or two of full time work for one programmer.

Do you mean by the top 3 Google results, the organic results and not the Froogle results in google.com?

Because the Froogle results in google.com are the top 3 in Froogle.com for that keyword match.

But in that case, it might be interesting to see the top 20 organic results in google.com, possibly also the sponsored listings.

Do you mean by the top 3 Google results, the organic results and not the Froogle results in google.com?

Because the Froogle results in google.com are the top 3 in Froogle.com for that keyword match.

But in that case, it might be interesting to see the top 20 organic results in google.com, possibly also the sponsored listings.
Sorry if that was unclear, Barry. I meant the top 3 Froogle results that gets displayed at Google.com (like in my 'cookware' example). Basically, as your program is displaying its Froogle results, it would be interesting to see which of those made it over to Google (top 3 non-organic) and which ones didn't.

For that it looks like it takes to the top 3 "best matches" from froogle and orders them by price in google.com.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=cookware&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&sa=N&tab=ff

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cookware

But, we will store this info.

Ok will get started on this shortly.

Ok, data collection tool is almost 100% built.

Please provide a list of keywords you would like me to test and I will run it on those keywords.

I will then publish the raw results and the statistics I run in SAS and Excel.

Purely selfish, but how about:

art prints
canvas transfers
posters

Looking forward to seeing what you've got. :)

Ok, but results only show up in the main Google if the keyword is more specific. We can also gather info on generic keywords but see http://www.google.com/search?q=art+prints&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 versus http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=palm+t3&btnG=Search

See difference?

Also, I think the data feed itself, the data you send them is important.

Is anyone willing to send me their feeds to help with the study?

Hi Barry:

I'll send you my data feed via e-mail. How many records would you like?

As many as you like, I won't use all of them. I will try to use a set up results that vary in terms of competitiveness.

My email is barry @ my screen name .com

Another thing that I'm not sure yet if it takes into play, but since my ecommerce retail company is a Yahoo! Store and they have been feeding our listings to Froogle ever since it started, I'm not sure if there is any boost in the algo as to the feed comes from a trusted source?

We also have our RSS/XML feed listed on the footer to all out pages as well.

Right now, I believe we appear well for many of our products, so perhaps you might like to test our feed. I will send you a link through a PM.

Thanks for doing this for all of us Barry!!

Excellent, I don't want to miss anything. Of course I will. So keep it coming.

Thank you,

Barry

Shari Thurow published a good interview with Froogle's Craig Nevill-Manning:

Questions for Froogle's Mastermind, Part 1 (http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/results/article.php/3357271)
Questions for Froogle's Mastermind, Part 2 (http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/results/article.php/3363721)

Part 1 said in terms of this thread
Ranking is done using a function that is based on the Google ranking but is tuned especially for Froogle, making use of the structured data that is unique to Froogle: name, description, price, image, etc.


Apart from comprehensiveness and ranking quality, we apply the Google formula of a simple user interface and fast response times.

Part 2
PageRank is an important input to the ranking function. Sites with high PageRank are more likely to have their products appear in the top results.

Generic tips at the bottom: http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/results/article.php/3363721


Thanks for the link. Lets now see what the data says. :)

Ok, data collection tool is almost 100% built.

Please provide a list of keywords you would like me to test and I will run it on those keywords.

I will then publish the raw results and the statistics I run in SAS and Excel.

The following appear in both Google (for 3 top Froogle fed) and Froogle SERPs.

dell dimension
apple computers
goodyear tires
palm pilot

update: little delay in the study, do to some real business that had to be taken care of. The program is written, need some time to run some manual test. This will not be an automated system. To submit keywords, you will have to post them here. I do not want to have my site blocked from running tests on Google. I will run very few tests manually to prevent this.

Rustybrick, I'm very interested in the results of your study. I'll be sending a feed - hope you still need those.

I have done some title and description editing to try to improve positioning and one thing I've noticed is that under "best match" the listings that come up on top for many of my keywords all have a Google category link included with the listing. So far I have been unable to figure out how the product gets into the category. This seems to be important as, from what I can determine, my site should be a better match than those that appear above it - it doesn't have the category link though. Caveat - this is not consistent on every search term. Sometimes the top sites don't have the category link and still appear above listings that seem to be better optimized based on title and description. It's a puzzle.

example search term is: focus night and day contacts

Yes, we still are in need of more data feeds. I currently have two. The more the better.

Thanks for your observations, it will help when creating the reports and graphs.

How is this coming along?

Final touched being put into the code now. Will run real tests in next day or so. Then gather data, export to excel, and manually make up some reports and graphs.

After I do the manual graphs and reports, I will then have them programmed in SQL and JD Graphs libraries for fun. Then I will publish the results of the tests I have run.

Sorry for the delay. Real work always precedes this type of stuff. Plus we had some hacker from China try to break into my local network, so that ate up a lot of time. Nothing like having a dozen programmers figure out wicked ways to hack the hacker back. :) From the owners perspective, its not a great use of company resources. Ok enough excuses...

Plus we had some hacker from China try to break into my local network, so that ate up a lot of time. Nothing like having a dozen programmers figure out wicked ways to hack the hacker back. :) From the owners perspective, its not a great use of company resources. Ok enough excuses...

:D LOL :D

Purely selfish, but how about:

art prints
canvas transfers
posters

Looking forward to seeing what you've got. :)

art prints works well because Google shows the top 3 in the main Google results. the other two won't work for this study.

I ran art prints, tuxedos, cisco pix and I will do a bunch more. You have have specific requests, please post them here.

But make sure the top 3 Froogle results show up in the main Google results.

So far i ran these keywords:

tuxedos, art+prints, cisco+pix+501, symantec+200r, dell+dimension, apple+computers, goodyear+tires, palm+pilot, Palm+Tungsten+T3

Will let it rest for an hour before continuing.

Feel free to suggest keywords.

Logical, but worth noting on.

Froogle Feeds are ranked above Froogle natural crawls.

See http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&tab=wf&q=Single+Breasted+Tuxedo&btnG=Search+Froogle&sa=N&start=20

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&tab=wf&q=single+button+vest&btnG=Search+Froogle&sa=N&start=30

Hi Barry:

If you don't mind, could you try running the phrase canvas prints?

Made a few adjustments to my feed and would be interested in seeing the results of your program.

Thanks.

Hi Barry:

If you don't mind, could you try running the phrase canvas prints?

Made a few adjustments to my feed and would be interested in seeing the results of your program.

Thanks.

No problem, total of 25 keywords being stored with tons of data on them. I want to get at least 100 keywords. But I want to run them slowly throughout the days. I would love 500, but 100 should be enough to start coming up with some stats.

Here is an updated list of keywords tested, feel free to submit some here. I will be running some preliminary tests on this data over the next few days to get a better idea if I am missing any data.

Keywords stored in database: tuxedos, art+prints, cisco+pix+501, symantec+200r, dell+dimension, apple+computers, goodyear+tires, palm+pilot, Palm+Tungsten+T3, epson+printer, sofa+bed, panasonic+phones, microsoft+office+mac, basketballs, bras, dockers, fountains, turntable, clogs, compass, robomower, tricycle, bedskirt, pumps, canvas+prints, sardines, hot+sauce, tortilla+press, sunbeam+water+cooler, futon, dresser, spatula, parka, cowbell, humidifier, wreath

You know what. I do not know what I was thinking. I have tons of data and its incredibly hard to figure out each criteria. Based on my initial studies, its mostly about text matches and very little about link popularity.

Sorry for such high hopes, I feel real bad about this.

But I do have a surprise for you link building people, thats for an other thread.

Hmmm..... Sounds interesting!

So to get a better picture of your findings, what do you think weighs high?
For example:

On Page:
a) title
b) keyword density
c) page size (loading time)

Off Page:
a) Tied-in to real-time inventory systems
b) Size of store (ie. registered items on feed for mystore.com)
c) Secure checkout + Privacy Policy + Store's real info

^^^ JUST AN EXAMPLE ^^^

Most important (IMO):

- Product Title
- Product Description

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. What a great discussion on Froogle. I have been researching it for the past few months after achieving great results with it for a client of mine. My theory on when Froogle listings show on Google SERP is on keyword that have a current hot marketplace demand. Keywords like "digital projector", "lcd tv", "wireless pda" which are currently hot products show through in Google.

But they also seem to change. A few weeks ago, "plasma tv" showed through, today it doesn't. From research I have done, PR doesn't seem to matter. Also, general categories show, not band name. Like "ipod" isn't there but "mp3 player" is.

It also seems that the top three positions shown in the default view on Froogle are th eones that potentially show on Google. My client wasn't low, medium or high on pricing yet achieved a top three psoition imemdiately. I believe ranking is determined equally by data feed optimizatin and product web page optimization. Froogle deos crawl your web page using what appears to be standrad search ranking determinations like keyword density, keyword relevancy but also formatting of price, iamge and description in the same cell.

Sorry for the long post. I'm excited about Froogle's potential.

My theory on when Froogle listings show on Google SERP is on keyword that have a current hot marketplace demand.

Not that I have the answer, but I'm not so sure I'd agree. Certainly products like

Novels
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=novels

CDs
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cds

DVDs
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=dvds

would be considered a 'hot marketplace' demand, but I don't see those terms appearing in the Google SERPs (fed by Froogle's top 3 listings).

It also seems that the top three positions shown in the default view on Froogle are the ones that potentially show on Google.

Yes, you are quite correct. I guess the question now becomes how do you get in the top 3? <scratching my head>

Hi Respree

I just clicked on your link for "novels" and found Google SERP with the Product Search Results for "Novel". DVD and CD didn't have any.

That's interesting. In an article I read Google stated that Froogler listings appear "“For a fairly small subset of queries that we (Google) strongly believe indicate users are looking to purchase a product, we show three results above the Web results.”

In another article, Google stated that the keywords are selected based on their “relevancy relating to a user’s purchasing intent.”

This would seem to indicate that keywords like "buy novels" would show but not a general term like "novels".

I wonder if there is any correlation with hot products on shopping.com? They have a "hot products" area. Like "football cleats" show as a "gaining" hot porduct on shopping.com and a search on Google for "football cleats" show Froogle listings??? http://www.shopping.com/CDI/cdi.cmp

I know I am reaching on this one.

The 'novels' search is very odd. That's not what I saw before (hope I'm not losing my mind), when I posted the link. I can't imagining the 3 Froogle results sometimes appearing and sometimes not. Strange indeed....

respree, during my testing, I have seen froogle results appear sometimes on Google's main page. Refresh a few times and it might disappear. It happens on items that might overlap with Google News more often then with items that do not conflict with other Google properties.

I did a test recently that convinced me that Page Rank of destination page doesn't make a difference in Froogle ranking. My firm has two equally valid product pages for a given product. One is PR7, the other PR5. With the PR5 URL in my Froogle feed I'm ranked #57. With the PR7 URL in my Froogle feed I'm ranked #57! Thus, in my limited experiment, PR doesn't matter.