[SSanf]

Does anyone here submit feeds to Froogle?

Is it hard to get in?

Do you just put in links to the buy page or what?

Do they accept merchants who use paypal?

[Neil]

i got a froogle account very easy.
but i have never used it yet .
i never got round to it .

[MichaelColey]

They have a signup page.

I should point out that this is only for merchants. They won't accept affiliates.

[SSanf]

Since I will be using a paypal account, how would they even KNOW if I am an affiliate or what my relationship with the merchant is?

[MichaelColey]

If you're collecting the money, they would consider you a merchant.

[TLE]

I had noticed that the Froogle links to eBay are affiliate links, would Froogle be the affiliate here? I'd thought merchants are not allowed to generate affiliate traffic to their own auctions.

Tuan

[SSanf]

Well, I guess, that I am going into the merchanting business fast!

Sort of by the back door.

Actually, the merchant is collecting the money and paying me a percentage but you won't be able to tell it from my site in any way.

[ecomcity]

My hope is Froogle weeds out all affiliates and pseudo merchants from it's product only database. Letting scumbag affiliates or traffic desperate middlemen into it will spell it's doom as a shoppers resource. Friggin Super affiliates like Shopping.com and the comparision shopping engines and networks own SEO/SEM teams would so spam Froogle it becomes worthless.

Purpose of Froogle is for large and small actual merchants, with shopping carts and commitments to fulfillment services, directly face the Froogle shoppers in every listing. Shoppers should be able to sue any Froogle merchant for fraud -deception or any other merchant/buyer abuse under existing laws. All other merchants posers and traffic/cookie tricksters can keep their links out of Froogle if Google has any purposeful design for that directory.

[Leader]

you won't be able to tell it from my site in any way.~Ssanf

Better be sure of that...they say right out (or at least they used to), that they'll ban anyone they catch trying to sneak under the wire...
Possible failure points to watch for: Are there any clues when the customer goes over to the payment area? How about the URL of the thank-you/confirmation page? Are all your images hosted where they'd be expected to be (usually on your own site)?

Do you just put in links to the buy page or what?

You make a datafeed according to their specs and submit it. And, they want you to resubmit it every month even if nothing changes.

Do they accept merchants who use paypal?

I didn't see any restrictions based on payment method, but best look at their terms to be sure.

i got a froogle account very easy.
but i have never used it yet .
i never got round to it .~Neil

I've been procrastinating, too. But in another thread, Ecom said that it's good for a SERP boost. Needless to say, they'll probably have that feed by tomorrow. Kind of feels like asking the IRS for an audit since Google'll probably never believe there's a real merchant site on MY server, LOL! Hopefully they'll buy a few thousand bulbs while they're looking.

[Leader]

Letting scumbag affiliates or traffic desperate middlemen into it will spell it's doom as a shoppers resource.

From an affiliate perspective, that might not be a bad thing! Getting that competitor out of the Arena would be a service. Whether they make commissions off it is beside the point; affiliates don't have any use for Google becoming The Place to Go to shop.

[jrod805]

Has anyone here noticed much traffic directed from Froogle, or tracked any sales as a result of it?

[Neil]

now you have me thinking ?.Mmmm.

edited: to add.

glad we had this thread,
i just looked on froogle for my products.
and found 2 of my products, using my feeds......
someone is about to be shot.

[jrod805]

Originally Posted by Neil

now you have me thinking ?.Mmmm.

edited: to add.

glad we had this thread,
i just looked on froogle for my products.
and found 2 of my products, using my feeds......
someone is about to be shot.

One of your affiliates?

[Neil]

the investigation is underway.

[Kevin]

Not it! Don't point that thing at me....

[Herb Ô¿Ô¬]

Originally Posted by jrod805

Has anyone here noticed much traffic directed from Froogle, or tracked any sales as a result of it?

of all my sites, only one page has a price for something that involves just me.

they found it. listed it. couldn't tell you if they sent anyone, though .

[Leader]

Originally Posted by Neil

now you have me thinking ?.Mmmm.

edited: to add.

glad we had this thread,
i just looked on froogle for my products.
and found 2 of my products, using my feeds......
someone is about to be shot.

Wait, hold your fire!

It IS POSSIBLE (I've done it!) for an affiliate to have products show up in Froogle as a result of normal spidering!

No tricks are needed for this. All I've needed was some kind of mention of a price, along with commercial words like "buy" or "order."

Since I never intentionally mention prices on my aff sites, this usually happens when a merchant has slipped it into some field that it doesn't belong in. And, once I mentioned a certain low-low shipping price. Googlebot picked that up and mistakenly associated it as a product price...presto--into Froogle and getting dud clicks from yokels who don't do a logic-check when a $300 item appears with Froogle telling them it's "$2.98" at Mysite.

My aff pages getting into Froogle isn't something that happens often, but it's often enough that a lot of people would be blasted for nothing by merchants too quick to start axing. Froogle's attempts to be anti-affiliate may work for their feed-input system, which seems to be humanly reviewed, but they break down when it comes to the spider-generated results (Froogle has both).

[TJ]

Originally Posted by Leader

Wait, hold your fire!

It IS POSSIBLE (I've done it!) for an affiliate to have products show up in Froogle as a result of normal spidering!

No tricks are needed for this. All I've needed was some kind of mention of a price, along with commercial words like "buy" or "order."

Right, I've seen some of my pages in there too

[ecomcity]

Accidental listings do occur and are filtered out as the real merchants complain. No penality by Google... unless they uncover a plot to spam Froogle with non-authorized feeds. Yes Froogle does drive traffic for real merchants as I have 4 clients who book Froogle sales all the time.

[MichaelColey]

Yeah, I've had pages get spidered by Froogle, too. It's likely not intentional, as Google makes it virtually impossible for affiliates to sneak in feeds.

[suzigeek]

I used to get only froogle hits to one of my websites and no hits from goggle and I never submitted it. I made many sales...Now this site is huge in Google and no more pages are in Froogle.

[SSanf]

Well, now, it is possible to get in the back door of Froogle if you have the words buy and a price on the page, eh?

Hmm

Well, my merchant has given me complete freedom over his feed and the use of it including submitting it to Froogle which he said I could do using my affiliate ID with him so I can get paid. In fact, I am developing the whole thing for him since he has tons of products, access to more products from about 40 wholesalers and has never had a feed. All he wants is sales. His real focus is his brick and mortar store and he is glad to have someone else do this for him. So......

[markymark]

If you're using your affiliate ID in the feed, Ssanf, it's likely you won't get it included. They manually review the first feed you send. Also, they did have a clause that prohibited merchants that only offered Paypal. Don't know if this is still true.

As for whether Froogle converts...I have my many of my clients sites in Froogle and yup, it converts extremely well.

[SSanf]

So how on earth would THEY know it is an affiliate link? It doesn't say affiliate link or anything like that.

BTW, Paypal takes all major credit cards now. They didn't used to. So, I will have to see if they still exclude Paypal.

So, OK, I am not an affiliate. I just get paid a percentage of the sales that are a direct result of my efforts in consideration for the work I do.

I, guess, that is OK.

I couldn't find any mention of Paypal at all over there.

[Neil]

i have my AM \Webmaster on it today.
we will just ask them to be removed
after what i have read here, it maybe a genuine mistake..
though i did not think froogle was any good at sales.??
you live and learn.
i got that account about 5 months ago and never bothered with it