If you're interested in the web search world and aren't reading John Battelle's searchblog, you really should be. John's a smart guy who knows a ton of people in this area.

On the recent addition of Froogle results to Google search results, John says:

...it is a clear departure from the conceit - and I use that term neutrally - that Google has always maintained, which is that the results offered by their engine are free of human intervention - that they in fact reflect the results of a carefully tended algorithmic secret sauce applied to every site without bias. Clearly, humans have decided to put that category of Product Search on top of the main results. And certainly those results are not subject to the same secret sauce which sifts the rest of the unwashed web. (One can imagine merchants racing to game Froogle, now that Froogle results are showing up - in first position no less - on the firehose of traffic that is the main results page of Google). No matter how you slice it, this marks a departure.

I suspect that this is not a trial balloon at all.

This reminds me of another [important] Google related point that I've really been meaning to make. Stay tuned.

Posted by jzawodn at December 18, 2003 08:56 AM

Reader Comments
# Hank said:

I've noticed a Froogle link at the bottom of some search pages, along with the blurb "shameless self promotion".

on December 18, 2003 01:57 PM
# Marco said:

Putting a Froogle link in the result is a logical reaction. They had also put the Google News in the results.

on December 20, 2003 02:38 PM
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