Google, the ever-expanding search engine, has entered one of the most competitive corners of Web searching, online shopping, with a test site called Froogle.
One of the main uses of general search sites like Google is to look for things to buy. But the new service focuses specifically on products for sale, displaying pictures of the items and their prices at various merchants. It lets users narrow a search by product and by price.
At first, however, Froogle (www.froogle.google.com) has far fewer features than the shopping sections of other shopping search sites, which offer various combinations of information, reviews and price comparisons, and the ability to search using a wider range of product attributes. These competitors include the shopping sections of major portals, like Yahoo and America Online, specialized shopping sites, like Bizrate and Dealtime, and big online marketplaces like eBay and Amazon.com.
What distinguishes Froogle from all these sites, however, is that it does not charge merchants to be included in its search and it is not paid when users click on a store's offering. It even invites online stores to send a list of their products and prices every day. That is quite a contrast to Google, which makes it very difficult for sites to try to be included in the results.
The Froogle site says it intends to make money by selling advertising above and to the right of the shopping search results, as Google does on its main site. Online stores find that paying shopping sites to list their products is among the best ways to attract shoppers
Internet executives expect that Google will attempt an initial public offering next year. An entry in the shopping area could help reassure investors that Google is viable. But, if Google expands too much, it risks creating conflict with AOL, Yahoo and others.
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