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Google's main search engine is soon going to take on some distinctly Froogle-ish characteristics.

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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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.