The Bottom Line

It should be no surprise that Google offers top-flight product and shopping search services; as you've previously learned, the company's core search technologies can be applied to all sorts of specialized searches.

In the case of Froogle, there's a lot to likeand a few things not to like. The big plus is Froogle's complete impartiality, as it doesn't take any paid listings (as do competing price comparison sites). The major minus is that Froogle's austerity also keeps it from offering honest-to-goodness head-to-head product comparisons, as you can find on Shopping.com and similar sites.

For these reasons, I use Froogle when I know what I'm looking for but don't know where to buy it. If I'm still in the stage of deciding what specific product I want, then Shopping.com is my site of choice; there's a lot more product information there than you'll find on Froogle.