Back in 2002, Google launched Froogle, their product search engine. It’s named was created by mixing the terms “frugal” and “Google” together. Last week, Google announced that they are converting Froogle over to a Google brand and naming it Google Product Search instead. If you go to http://www.froogle.com, you will now be redirected to http://www.google.com/products.

Why the sudden name change?

“We were a really young company, and I don’t think we really understood the burden of a new brand,” said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. “I also think it was very hard to build awareness. Our product offering was very robust, but it will fare better with a Google Product Search name.”

So it seems like Google is taking a more grown-up approach to their product search and trying to brand their product search under the Google name. I think that’s half of the reason. I truly believe that the major reason for the name change is because Froogle was not doing that well on it’s own. I think it needs the recognition of the Google brand to be noticed more.

The Froogle link was removed from the Google homepage last year. But now you’ll find the Products link under the “more” link.

Even though Google has changed the name from Froogle to Google Product Search, users will still submit their products to Google Base as they have done so in the past. Now it all makes sense!

Last year the Froogle product submission feature was suddenly switched to Google Base and then a few months ago, Google required additional required fields when submitting products to Google Base. Now these changes all make sense. They were slowly integrating Froogle over to this new system.

I think this is a great change for Google, as well as all online product companies out there. This should be a golden opportunity to take advantage of. If you’re a product company and you don’t submit your products to Google Base, then I would think about doing this ASAP. The new change should drive more exposure to the Google Product Search engine and will in turn increase sales for all product companies who submit their products to Google Base.

At Hudson Horizons, we provide automated product submission to Froogle for only $15 / month. We submit your products three times a week to Froogle to ensure that they are always included in the search results.