Search Froogle

About Froogle

Successful Sellers

Froogle, Google's shopping search engine, applies the power of Google's search technology to one very specific task: locating sellers that offer the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can buy it.

To use Froogle, click the Froogle top link on Google or go directly to the Froogle home page. Type in the name of the item you want to find and click on "Search Froogle" to see offers available for purchase online. If you prefer to pick up the item yourself, you can then click "Local Shopping" to enter your zip code and search for the item near you. Almost instantly, you'll see photos of relevant products and links to the stores that sell them. You'll also see Product Reviews and Seller Ratings to help you make better buying decisions.

As with all other Google search results, Froogle ranks your results based on their relevance to your search terms. Google does not accept payment for placement within our actual search results, and the advertising that appears on Froogle search results pages is always clearly identified as "Sponsored Links."

1. How does Froogle do what it does?

Froogle collects product information in two ways. First, it uses product information submitted electronically by sellers who choose to take advantage of this free service. If you're interested in having your product information appear on Froogle, you can submit your items to Froogle. Second, as Google's spidering software crawls the Internet, Froogle automatically identifies webpages that offer products for sale. These are the pages Froogle searches when you enter the name of an item you want to find.

Froogle's search results are automatically generated by our ranking software. Google does not accept payment for inclusion of products in our search results, nor do we place sellers' sites higher in our results if they're advertisers or offer to pay for that placement.

2. How does Froogle "Local Shopping" work?

Sometimes you're just looking for the cheapest online deal, but sometimes need to buy something from a store near you, right now. With Froogle, we provide both options. You can search for "ipods" or "ipods near New York", and you can click on "Local Shopping" or "Online Shopping" to toggle between the local and online views.

The good news for sellers is that, while you still need to have web pages describing each product you have for sale in order to list them on Froogle, you no longer need to have ecommerce enabled on your website; once local people find your products, they can come buy them in person. Learn more about listing your items on Froogle.

3. What are the "Sponsored Links" on the page?

Sponsored Links are paid advertisements that Froogle displays when they're relevant to your search terms; they are not related to your search results, which are generated automatically by our search engine and delivered in order of relevance to what you're trying to find. If you're interested in buying advertising in the Sponsored Links portion of the Froogle search results page, please visit the Google AdWords home page. If you're a vendor interested in having your products included in Froogle search results at no cost to you, please learn more about listing your items for sale on Froogle.

4. How does Froogle compare with other sites?

Froogle is unlike other sites both because of what it does and because of what it doesn't do. Froogle does provide a lightning quick way to search the largest collection of sellers and products on the web. That means if the item you're looking to buy is online, Froogle will likely find it. Froogle also uses information from sellers about their in-store offers to help shoppers find information about products available near them.

Froogle does not, however, sell products or promote partner sellers within the search results. There's no shopping cart or wallet into which you can place your credit card information, nor are there preferred sellers who always show up as the first result regardless of what search you enter. Our job is to find the product you want and point you to the store that sells it; we provide objective results based on our calculation of what's most relevant to your search. We don't accept payment for inclusion in our results themselves, and all advertising that appears on Froogle is clearly labeled as "Sponsored Links."

5. How do I buy something from Froogle?

That's a trick question. You can't buy products directly from Froogle, because Froogle isn't a store; it's simply a search engine that finds the items you're looking for and points you to sellers that do offer them for sale. Once you visit the seller's website or store, that seller should be more than happy to help you make a purchase.

6. I want more control over my results. What are my options?

You can change how your results are displayed by providing more information about what you want to find. For example, you can choose "Local Shopping" to find items available near you. Entering a price range and then sorting by price (from high to low or from low to high) will organize your results in a more useful way. You might also want to try the "grid view" option, which allows you to view 15 product thumbnail images on each results page.

7. Can I search for products within a particular category?

You can narrow your results by category. For example, a search on "bulb" shows categories for both plants and lighting. By clicking on the appropriate category link, you'll see only the results for the product you're looking to buy.

8. I don't see my favorite lemur supply store on Froogle. Can you add it?

Our goal is to make Froogle the most comprehensive source of information about products online, and your suggestions for stores to add can help us achieve that. Please send your suggestions to froogle-support@google.com. Be sure to include the name and URL (web address) for each seller and a brief description of what they sell. Please note that for a variety of reasons, we are unable to crawl some websites, so it may not always be possible to honor your request.

9. I sell prosimian supplies. How do I get them included in Froogle?

If you have a website where people can buy products, you can visit our Information for Sellers page, or go directly to Google Base to submit your products for inclusion in Froogle results. This is a free service.

If you have products that you want included in Froogle's local shopping results pages, you must use Google Base to upload these items to Froogle. If you've never submitted a feed before, you may want to read up on how it works.

10. You know what Froogle should do? I do! Whom do I email?

We always love to hear from our users and we read all the mail we receive. If you have a question, comment, suggestion, or complaint, please send an email to froogle-support@google.com.

11. Froogle? What kind of name is that anyway? And who's "Beta"?

Froogle is a play on the word "frugal," meaning thrifty, and the name "Google," which we like to think stands for excellence in search technology. "Google" is itself a play on the word "googol," which is the term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. So you might say "Froogle" is a play within a play. "Beta" is geek-speak for a pilot program or test version of a product. It means that the Froogle you see today is likely to evolve and improve over time. You can help make that happen by sending your suggestions to froogle-support@google.com.

12. What are Froogle Seller Ratings and Product Reviews?

Froogle Seller Ratings and Product Reviews can help you learn more about the sellers and products you find on Froogle. Google's technology scours the web and identifies relevant information about these stores and products, and offers you this information in the form of snippets of reviews from independent ratings sites (if you want to read a full review, you can click through to the site itself). Froogle uses computer algorithms to calculate an overall rating for a store or product by combining data from multiple rating sites. To see a seller's ratings, click on the green stars next to the seller's name. To see a product's reviews, click on the yellow stars beneath the product description.

13. I know a great website that rates sellers or products. How do I get it added to Froogle?

Please email your ideas for ratings sources to froogle-ratings@google.com. While we can't guarantee that we'll add every source that's recommended to us, we can guarantee that we'll review all the suggestions we receive.

14. I work for a ratings site whose data appears on Froogle. We have some questions regarding our content and Froogle.

Please contact us at froogle-ratings@google.com. We're pleased to work with individual websites to ensure that their content is appropriately represented on Froogle.

15. What is a Froogle Shopping List?

Your Froogle Shopping List lets you save and share information about the products you find on Froogle. If you find a product you want to keep close at hand, just click on "Add to list" and you'll be able to bring it up again quickly (first you'll need to create a Google Account if you don't already have one). You can also write notes to yourself, and sort products by price, title and the date they were added to your list. Your Shopping List is stored online at Froogle, so you can log in and access it from any computer.

You can also share your list with friends or family by creating a Wish List that will be accessible to anyone who searches for your email address on the Froogle Shopping List homepage (you can also email your Wish List URL to others). Just check the "In Wish List" checkbox next to the item. If you send out your Wish List a few weeks before Christmas or your holiday, you may never again receive an orange and green plaid sweater for a present.

16. Is my Froogle Shopping List private?

The items on your Froogle Shopping List are visible only when you sign in, unless you choose to share them on your publicly accessible Wish List. Google stores your Shopping List information on its own servers so that you can access it from any computer. We do not sell or share any of your personal information.

For more information about how Google processes and maintains your Shopping List and other personal information, please see our Google Privacy Policy.

17. Can I get price comparison information on my mobile phone?

Yes you can. With Google SMS, you can do price comparisons on Froogle literally while you're standing in a store. Simply type a text message query with 'price' along with the product name and send it to the 5-digit US shortcode 46645 ('GOOGL' on most phones). To get price comparisons for a 20 gigabyte iPod, for instance, send the following message: 'price ipod 20gb'. You can learn more about Google SMS and get search tips at http://sms.google.com.

If you're able to access the mobile web on your phone, you can also visit the Froogle site by directing your mobile web browser to http://wml.froogle.com/. Visit http://labs.google.com/frooglewml.html from your home computer to learn more about this option.