CNET informs us: “Froogle” is gone, replaced by “Google Product Search.” As Cnet put it, “it’s better to be clear than clever.”

Google officials interviewed by CNET cite issues with the punny name ranging from clarity to translation to trademarks.

But on to other things the CNET article goes, diving into a rather deep discussion of another Google product that suffers from a less-than-clear name: Google Base. Always makes me think of base jumping.

Ahem. Anyway, if you want to learn more about Google Base, and see how Epicurious improved its results from Google Base, keep reading in CNET’s story on the demise of Froogle.

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Froogle Shops For A Frugal Experience

White background, Google name on top, search box in the middle, one or two buttons next to the box.

That’s pretty much the trade dress for a Google product finding its way into a browser window, and as of now it’s a look shared by the service formerly knows as Froogle.

Google’s shopping and product search now goes by the more descriptive name of Google Product Search.

Google’s Marissa Mayer blogged about the name change, saying the Froogle name caused confusion for some people.

We liked the Froogle name, a mild play on the word "frugal." Frugal Google, find stuff for sale on Froogle. Even though it may look like a missed opportunity, Froogle never really caught on with people and had been one of Google’s low-trafficked services.

Now it’s being recast as a pipeline into Google Base, with a helpful link to Information for Sellers on the Product Search page.

Google also touts its Checkout service at the same link. Upload your stuff, set up a payment process, and wait for the buyers to arrive.

The seller is also invited to create AdWords ads for their offers. That’s the real aim of Product Search, since search advertising is virtually all of Google’s revenue.

Something that we aren’t seeing at press time is Product Search results appearing in regular Google searches.

Doing a query on Google for something showing up as an item "recently found with Google Product Search" doesn’t bring up a OneBox of shopping results. We expect that will change as Google finishes the switch away from Froogle.

Search Blogs With Google News

As far as placement goes, putting a link to Blog Search on Google News isn’t quite the same as when the company gave its Video site a prominent link on the Google home page. That move shunted Froogle and Groups into the nether lands of the “More” menu linked from the home page.

TechCrunch also noted the change made by Google over the weekend. Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote how this demonstrated the strategic thinking going on at Google:

Google has demonstrated pretty consistently that it will launch products with the intent of incrementally improving them over time. ‘Googling Google’ blogger Garett Rogers highlighted a recent change at Google Finance that just arrived and makes for a good example:

Our readers who follow Google likely have more than a passing familiarity with Webmaster Central. This service tends to see updates every two to three months, which confirms what Google’s Vanessa Fox suggested in April 2006 regarding tweaks to the service.

Google’s Blog Search works well, but is not as feature-rich as Technorati yet. It is easy to imagine Google being able to match Technorati’s “Authority” feature, which filters blog post search results based on inbound links, without difficulty.

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Supposedly, Google “has no plans to monetise this product-search capability with display ads or listing fees, but that could change . . . .”

The news broke at the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) Summit, and PC Advisor’s Juan Carlos Perez detailed some of the changes. “When people search for products on Google.com, the system will present them with another search box so that they can refine their query,” he wrote.

“After people refine their query, Google takes them to a second page populated with product results from the Google Base listings service,” Perez continued. The changes should benefit both shoppers and merchants – and be just “in time for the holiday shopping season.”

Perez spoke to Jonathan Garriss, PESA’s executive director. “Anything that improves product search and helps shoppers find what they want is always positive for a merchant like me,” Garriss said. “It will make it a smarter search.”

He also mentioned plans to improve the product information he feeds from his store to Google Base.

The changes at Google.com will coincide with a “de-emphasis” of Froogle.

Danny Sullivan commented on the change, writing, “Froogle as a brand and destination set for demotion was pretty clear when it was dropped from the Google home page last month, a position it held since 2004. That placement never helped Froogle much, in part because many people simply ignore the little links above the search box entirely.”

“Putting product results into regular Google results makes sense,” Sullivan continued, “just as it does for any type of vertical or custom results that Google does. This has mainly been through OneBox, but the new Google Base-style placements allow for the search box on results pages to contain more options, ones helpful to narrowing for product or other type of vertical searching.”

Google – and PESA – will be keeping its fingers crossed that the Froogle-ized Google homepage is successful.

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There are some good ideas on the list, and others that we know might already be in development, like Google TV Search and free Google Storage. Google Genetics might be a little far-fetched (and likely to start a congressional inquiry), but most of them are solid and realistic.

I was particularly interested to see Scanbuy in the list of technologies Google should take advantage of. Scanbuy is a company that develops software that lets you take a picture of a barcode with your mobile phone, and then look up things like prices, share personal information (via a 2D barcode on the back of a business card) and develop barcode/camera applications using an SDK for all the major mobile platforms (Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, Java, others).

I am an investor in Scanbuy, and have, on occasion, an advisor. The reason: I see so much untapped potential in this space, providing a cheaper, more secure and easier system than RFID, and I hope to see someone do some great things with it. Certainly, Google’s the type of company to develop some powerful mobile applications that involve camera phone pattern recognition, and could at the very least use it to improve their current mobile offerings, like Froogle.

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It should be noted that Google is folding Froogle into Google Base, a great idea and way to put all sorts of data on equal, usable footings. The more Google services that run on Base, the more Google can then concentrate on improving just Base, which would bring new features to a multitude of services at the same time.

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“From now on,” reads the Google Base Help Center, “when you click ‘Information for Sellers’ on the Froogle homepage, you’ll be brought to a new sign-in page.”

Anticipating the obvious question, “Is Froogle being replace by Google Base?” Google says Froogle’s search results will remain separate from Google Base. But all items submitted to Google Base will be displayed both in Froogle and Google Base search results.

As for Froogle feeds, most of the Froogle fields, now called “attributes” have an equivalent Google Base attribute and merchants submitting product feeds can remane the attribute names in the header line. Though their system will still be able to process Froogle field names, the company strongly recommends merchants use the Google base attributes instead.

As Froogle Merchant Center member information has already been transferred,, no new signup will be required and recently submitted Froogle feeds, now called “bulk uploads” will be processed and viewable in the dashboard.

If there are other questions, check out the Google Base Help Center.

The new service from Google will search a third-party database of retail inventory nationwide, the New York Times reported. The information in the database has been organized by locality.

Also, local businesses can add their items and their locations to Google Base. Searches done in Froogle for items and locations would query Base and return a map of stores with the item in stock.

“The only thing missing from the online retailing equation is ‘Do they have what I want,’ ” Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group said in the report. “But putting inventory on the Web, by store location, means now all of a sudden I have that final piece of the puzzle.”

While Google isn’t naming the service providing the national retailer inventory, the company did say several hundred chains, including Best Buy and Circuit City, were part of the information store. Chains like those do make local inventory available on their sites currently.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

As ComparisonEngines.com’s Brian Smith points out, Froogle was quietly updated this week with a number of changes to give it a cleaner, user-friendlier look.

The sponsored links from Google AdWords have moved from the right side of the page to the top of the page. Ads do not show up on the Merchant Ratings page. Smith says the changes make it look more like other comparison shopping sites.

A Compare Prices button has been added, signifying a shift from Google’s traditional text link, simplified feel.

Smith has before and after screenshots to illustrate the changes to the search results as well as the product pages.

The Google Blog has announced an update to Froogle Mobile. The change will help shoppers check prices as they roam the aisles of a store, and see if they’re getting the best deal.

Users with WAP 1.2 or higher browsers on their phones can go to http://wml.froogle.com to pull up the Froogle search box. Those results can be arranged by price or by best match for an item. Google has made this service available in the UK as well as the US.

It isn’t clear how retailers will react, or if they’ll react, to customers doing price checks by phones. Some of the bigger chains have frowned upon people actively making notes of prices in stores, but that was before Internet retailing began to grow.

And with so many people wandering from aisle to aisle with a phone stuck to their ears anyway, there may not be much notice paid to someone tapping away on a keypad. One can always say they’re just checking messages when they may be finding a better price on a MP3 player instead.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.

Much has been discussed about the rumored Google Payment system, with one line of thought contending that it would lead to the implementation of some kind of shopping cart functionality being alongside Froogle search results.

The Go Daddy Quick Shopping Cart allows online retailers to promote and sell products from their existing sites on Froogle and eBay. Once users register with either or both services, they select the products they want to have appear on those sites. For eBay, the users would also setup the terms of the auction.

Go Daddy connects via API feeds to the services and transmits the information. Once backend feed updates have been completed, usually within a week for Froogle and 30 minutes for eBay, those products can be purchased via those services from the seller.

The Quick Shopping Cart will be offered in three pricing tiers, and Go Daddy will offer additional services like product promotions, multiple payment options, and integrated UPS and USPS shipping services.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.