Froogle: It's Different from Other Price Comparison Sites

Before we get into how Froogle works, it might prove beneficial to first understand how the other price comparison sites on the Web work. That's because Froogle works differently from all those competing sites.

How Most Price Comparison Sites Work

If you've ever used BizRate (www.bizrate.com), NexTag (www.nextag.com), Shopping.com (www.shopping.com), and similar price comparison sites, you might be under the impression that these sites scour the Web for prices from a wide variety of online retailers. That's a false impression; instead, these sites build their price/product databases from product links submitted and paid for by participating retailers. That's right, most price comparison sites charge retailers to be included in their listings. The more retailers a site signs up, the more products there are for you to search through.

To be fair, these price comparison sites do appear to honestly present the lowest pricesfrom participating merchants, that is. The prices presented are legitimate, no matter who's paying what. The only thing is, it's possible that lower prices might exist at a retailer who doesn't sign on to a site's program.

How Froogle Works

Froogle isn't like all the other price comparison sites. Unique among these sites, Froogle is completely objective; Froogle doesn't take money for its listings, instead sending its spider software to independently scour the Web for merchants and products.

That's right, Froogle is a pure search engine, just like its Google parent. Froogle searches all the online retailers it can find, and doesn't accept any paid listings. That makes Froogle's price comparisons more legitimate than those at other sites. (And, in the name of full disclosure, it should be noted that merchants can also submit their product listings to Frooglethey just don't have to pay for this privilege.)

Not only are Froogle's results untainted by product placement, it also typically returns more results for any given item you're shopping for. That's again because of the way Froogle scours the Web for product listings; it's not limited to results submitted by participating retailers. If it's for sale on the Web, chances are Froogle knows about it.