The Axandra newsletter archive

17 December 2002

This week we're having a close look at keyword density and its role for your search engine rankings and we're introducing the latest version of Internet Business Promoter.

Google launched a new service called " Froogle " this week.

It lets you search for information about products that are for sale online. It's a comparison shopping service that uses the same search technology as Google. This means that it uses ranking algorithms to return the results.

The Froogle service is in direct competiton with Ask Jeeves' new comparative shopping service (see news below) and existing services like DealTime.com.

* How does Froogle work?

When you search for a product, for example the software product "Norton Anti Virus", then Froogle returns similar results as in Google (that means headline, description, link), except for:

• each result has a picture of the product (in our example, a graphic of the software box)
• each result tells you the store name
• each result tells you the price for the product
• You can narrow the search results by category and by price.

Try it yourself .

* Where do the Froogle results come from?

Like Google, Froogle uses spider software to automatically identify Web pages that offer products for sale.

In addition, Froogle also includes product information that was submitted electronically by merchants.

* What's in it for you?

In the near future, Froogle will be included in Google's search engine. This means that there will be a huge opportunity to present your products to millions of potential customers.

To be part of Froogle, you must meet these six requirements:

1. You must sell your products online.
2. Your Web site must be in English.
3. Your products must be priced in U.S. dollars.
4. Your products must have fixed prices.
5. Your online store must be located in the U.S.
6. You must sell your own products, affiliate marketing is not accepted.

If you don't meet these requirements, you can use Google's AdWords program to advertise in Froogle.

In fact, if you already participate in Google's AdWords program, your ads will automatically appear on Froogle result pages. However, you must have requested that your ads may appear on partner sites.

* How do you get your products listed at Froogle?

Now comes the best part. If you want your products to be included in Froogle, it won't cost you anything. You can either wait for Froogle's spider software to crawl your Web site, or submit to Froogle manually.

Unfortunately, submitting to Froogle is more complicated than submitting to Google. You can find detailed information about the submission process here .

* Beta

The Froogle service is currently in beta status. This means that Google is testing the Froogle service in public and that it's not finished yet.

At the moment, you cannot access the Froogle service via the Google home page. To access Froogle, you must either click the Froogle link on the advanced search page or go directly to the Froogle address.

* Further information about Froogle

Although Google hasn't published an official press release, all major news sources have written about Google's new service, for example

• Washington Post article
• http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/1556221
• http://news.com.com/2100-1017-977042.html

By the way, we've already reported about Google's new service one month ago .

• Google's aggregator technology
  
  At the SuperNova conference, Google's co-founder and president Sergey Brin has offered to create an XML-RPC ping aggregator at Google.
  
  An aggregator is a software program that periodically reads a set of news sources (Web pages) and extracts information from it. The news pages are written in XML format and commonly used for Web logs.
  
  This technology would allow Web sites to let the Google spider software know when something has changed on their site. Google could then immediately re-index the site.
  
  About the SuperNova conference: http://www.pulver.com/supernova/
  
  Explanation of aggregators, RSS and XML and how you can benefit from them:
  
  
  • http://www.purplepages.ie/rss/
  • http://www.voidstar.com/node.php?id=132
    
    
    
    
• News from the Google labs
  
  Google labs introduced two new experimental features. The " Google Viewer " presents Google search results in a slideshow.
  
  The " Google Webquotes " service returns Web sites that quote your search word. Check out what other sites tell about you and your site.
  
  More features in Google's labs. Visit our Google resource page .
  
  
  
  
• Ask Jeeves' new shopping service
  
  Three days before Google launched Froogle, Ask Jeeves introduced a new comparative shopping service in partnership with PriceGrabber.com.
  
  The service appears as a new channel on the Ask Jeeves homepage .
  
  You can also access Ask Jeeves' shopping service directly .
  
  
  
• HotBot relaunched
  
  Terra Lycos put out a revamped HotBot yesterday. The interface now lets you choose between searching FAST (AllTheWeb), Google, Inktomi, or Teoma.
  
  
  
  
• New rule for Overture UK advertisers
  
  Overture UK announced a change of their review rules in an email message to its advertisers.
  
  To speed up their submission process, Overture UK will not review keyword submissions anymore where the search volume is less than 5 searches per keyword per month.
  
  
  
  
• Espotting grows
  
  Espotting, the biggest European pay per click search engine competitor to Overture, added two new countries: Sweden and Denmark. Norway will follow in the first quarter of 2003.
  
  Espotting is very interesting to European advertisers because of its partnerships with Yahoo Europe, Ask Jeeves, AllTheWeb, LookSmart, Netscape Search and InfoSpace.
  
  http://www.Espotting.com/
  http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=14158
  
  In an email message to its advertisers, Espotting.de has reported that it has extended its contracts with Lycos and Fireball.de until 2005.
  
  
  
  
• The top keywords in 2002
  
  Lycos and Ask Jeeves have just published their top search terms in 2002. See their interesting lists at:
  
  - http://50.lycos.com
  - http://www.irconnect.com/askjinc/pages/news.mhtml?d=34661
  
  Some time before, Yahoo and Google have also published their top lists for 2002:
  
  - http://yir.yahoo.com/2002/buz/
  - http://www.google.com/press/timeline2002.html

* 2 Web site promotion tools in 1 software program

IBP is a professional Web site promotion tool that contains two professional Web site promotion tools: a powerful keyword density analyzer as well as a comprehensive search engine ranking tool that checks the position of your Web site on all important search engines.

As a special Christmas offer , you can purchase IBP now with a 20% discount.


* Freeware: Link Popularity Check (LPC)

LPC is a tool for webmasters that checks the link popularity of your Web site on many search engines at once and compares it to your competitors. It's freeware.


* Internet marketing sites we recommend

• How to write keyword rich Web pages
  
  
• The Google resource page
  
  
• Top 10 ways to link popularity, part 2
  
  
• Top 10 ways to link popularity, part 1
  
  
• How to check which Web pages are indexed

The Search Engine Facts newsletter is free. Please recommend it to someone you know.

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