Reuters (www.reuters.com) announced on October 12 that the search engine giant Google (www.google.com) has launched its Froogle price comparison website in Britain. Froogle UK (http://froogle.google.co.uk) works like the popular Google search engine, but only returns search results from online retailers. Unlike some e-commerce search sites, merchants do not have to pay to be included in Froogle search results. Google makes its money from selling text ads that are linked to search terms and appear alongside search results.
Paris-based Kelkoo (www.kelkoo.com), one of Google's largest advertisers, popularized price-comparison search engines, becoming one of Europe's fastest growing e-commerce sites. Earlier in 2004, Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) acquired Kelkoo for 475 million euros ($589 million) in an attempt to boost e-commerce revenue and tap into Europe's online retail market.
Froogle's expansion will be decidedly more gradual, though. The search firm said that, while it was considering expansion into France and Germany, there was no time frame for stepping onto Kelkoo's turf in continental Europe.
Cosmos Nicolau, Froogle's engineering director, said that as far as Froogle is concerned, it would be happy to show Kelkoo's listings, and that the company often maintained close relationships with rivals, noting that the Froogle service in the U.S. counts online retailer Amazon.com and Yahoo's shopping service among its retail partners.
