Get going with Google Froogle...

Posted by Ed on 7 December 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: google, froogle, ecommerce

It's probably more well known as Google Base or Google Shopping, but Froogle is still a hugely underused sales tool.

So, if you don't know, what IS Google Shopping/Base/Froogle?

It's essentially a way of you telling Google what you sell, so they can show your products when people search for them.

So why is it so good?

Froogle is good because you can tell Google what you want to sell on-line, and they list it on page 1 of their searches for any relevant search keyword or phrase that matches your product name or description.

I told you it was good, didn't I.

And best of all, it's free. So hang on, it's free and is a fast-track to page 1 listings, why isn't everyone doing it?

I think it is underused because :

1. People don't know about it
2. People don't tell their clients about using it because they don't know about it or can't manage data for it
3. It can be a bit time consuming to manage and uses a complicated Google schema for datafeeds

Well, I've debunked reason 1 & 2. Now you know about it, you should be getting pretty excited abut what it can do to help you.

So just what is involved with a Google Base listing?

You need a Googleaccount. They are free, so get one now.

You need to activate the business solutions base option. Again, this is free so you can go right ahead and get working.

Once you have a Google Base account set up, there are 3 ways you can manage your Google Base items.

1. Type them in manually
2. Upload an XML file with the product data in
3. Point Google at a live RSS/XML feed of your data

There is a time limit of 30 days before feed data expires, so you need to manage the information at least once a month. Any changes to prices and other important information wineed to be done mnually unless you have an automated feed.

The specifics of formatting your internal data in the required format are not within the scope of this blog, but once you have a Google account, you can get all the tips and tricks, as well as the full API specs from the business knowledgebase.

If you only have a small number of products, managing them directly through the Google Base console wil be fine.

If you have a lot of items, you probably want to automate an extract so you can upload or link directly to a feed.

Many E-Commerce applicaions have a Google Base export facility.

We have a .NET library that automates an RSS Feed from any data. Once it's stable, we'll be providing a download and documentation for our asp.net Google Base Module.

Well, that's it. Go get some Google Base if you haven't already.

Ed/