Froogle, Froogle, Can You Come Back?
February 24, 2018
When you are shopping for a new product, the first place you usually visit is Google. Google usually lists the top results for products and brands, but it takes a long time to sort through all of those results. (That is nothing new when it comes to search.) Google has decided to help shoppers in their consumer quest, says The SEM Post in the article: “Google Adds Research Search Feature To The Search Results.” While it sounds like Google is about to help researchers finish their homework assignments, the new feature actually adds product images to search results.
The new search feature is similar to the top stories search feature that lists the top news articles based on keyword entries. The product feature, however, lists top and popular products related to a query term. There are some drawbacks, as the article points out, when they searched for “bbq grills” One of the listings was outdated, another was a landing page that required clicking through the Web page for more information, and another only listed a partial date.
It is a good update, but it does need some revisions:
“I think this is an interesting addition, but definitely could use some tweaks to ensure that the articles they pull out are more current – such as under a year old – as well as ensuring what is linked to is useful. And it could serve as a great resource in the future for searchers, especially for those who are trying to get this type of information from third parties rather than from the retailers.”
From a business standpoint, however, this could be a new way Google could sell ad revenue. Companies can pay for their products to show up in this research feature. It is a great idea, but another thing that can be exploited. Perhaps Froogle can come home again?
Whitney Grace, February 24, 2018
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