Last month I mentioned Google Base was full of spam - and to be fair, Google has made genuine efforts to remove some of the junk. But now Comparison Engines is reporting that Froogle, Google's shopping comparison engine, has the same problem:
Because there are no setup fees and no per click fees, the results on Froogle are often made up of spammy results which make for a horrible user experience. Google might be great at general search and maps, but shopping search (in beta now for how many years?) needs serious attention.
I hate to pick on Froogle after Forbes.com panned the site a couple weeks ago and BusinessWeek’s Silicon Valley Chief gave the site a less than glowing review this weekend, but I just performed a search for ‘iPod Nano‘ which is one of the most popular products this holiday season…
The major problem....is that the results are made up of spam and eBay affiliate listings. Almost every single store listed on the first 9 pages (90+ results) links to spam or outdated (and therefore incorrectly priced) ebay affiliate listings through a basic landing page.