October 30, 2006

Google Base 2.0 Revealed?

Garett Rogers found in Google's robots.txt file, "Disallow: /base/s2" and then gave the URL a try and found a potential Google Base version 2.0. When I tried example searches at the /s2 directory, they were being redirected to the main Google Base, such as ice cream maker search, which now redirects to the main Google base. Both Garett and Philipp Lenssen have screen captures of what it looks like.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:32 AM | Permalink

October 3, 2006

Google Base Store Connector

Have an eBay store? How about a Yahoo store or an Amazon store? If yes, and you want into Google Base, you can now get into it easily get your products into Google Base from those three sources. Google released Google Base Store Connector, a tool that allows you to export your products from eBay, Yahoo or Amazon and bulk upload them to Google Base. The listings will then show your products and link them over to your eBay listings, or Yahoo Store or Amazon Store. Some more details at Google Operating System blog.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:23 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Goodbye Froogle; Hello Google Product Results In Web Search

Froogle, Google's shopping search engine that launched with big hopes back in 2002, is to be deemphasized in place of product listings integrated into regular Google search results.

The news has come out through Google's participation at the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance Summit last week in San Francisco. IDG has coverage of it here, saying:

A Google official shared the news with attendees at the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) Summit in San Francisco this week, according to people at the conference.

When people search for products on Google.com, the system will present them with another search box so that they can refine their query, wrote Bear Stearns analysts in a note published on Friday.

After people refine their query, Google takes them to a second page populated with product results from the Google Base listings service, wrote the analysts, who attended the Google official's presentation.

The association with the eBay sellers group and product results "powered" by Google Base is causing some confusion, in my view, about eBay "killer" Google Base "replacing" Froogle. Let's back up.

Froogle used to have its own feed mechanism to allow merchants to submit products. This system predated the system for sending material into Google Base.
In June, the Froogle submission system went away, replaced by submission to Google Base (and see also here). If Froogle was being "replaced" by Google Base, this is the time it happened.
Google Base has never been designed as a standalone service for searchers. The user interface there hasn't been that appealing, nor have searchers been seriously directed to it. In fact, the search box on the Google Base home page was just dropped, not something you do for a service designed for searchers. It is something you do, however, to help Google Base's mission of being a centralized submission tool for Google.
Google has been testing ways to flow customized results from Google Base into regular Google, to help deal with the invisible tabs issue I've long written about. My Google Real Estate? It's Google Base Again, Google's Vertical Play from earlier this year explains this integration in more depth.
Putting product results into regular Google results makes sense, just as it does for any type of vertical or custom results that Google does. This has mainly been through OneBox results, but the new Google Base-style placements allow for the search box on results pages to contain more options, ones helpful to narrowing for product or other type of vertical searching.

Froogle as a brand and destination set for demotion was pretty clear when it was dropped from the Google home page last month, a position it held since 2004. That placement never helped Froogle much, in part because many people simply ignore the little links above the search box entirely. In addition, in my view, Froogle is a cutesy name that never explain what Froogle was -- a shopping search engine. If it had been called Google Shopping, take-up might have been better.

Given this, "deemphasizing" Froogle as a destination isn't hard given that few seem to think of it as a destination anyway. Back in July, Hitwise found it ranked ninth among Google top 29 properties -- and sharewise, not that far behind Google Video (0.45 percent of all visitors to the top 20 Google sites went to Froogle versus 0.47 percent going to Google Video).

Google Video's move on to the home page helped that service and hurt Froogle, as Hitwise later notes. But again, sharewise, it was hardly noticeable. Froogle dropped to the 0.02 percent range, while Google Video rose to the 0.06 percent range. In other words, practically no one was going to either service compared to things like Google web search overall.

That's why better integration of all vertical search results into listings will be coming at Google, as well as other search engines. But I hope we will see a renamed Google Shopping service still survive, with a custom home page and URL. Shopping search is important enough that it deserves a standalone brand.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:00 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

The Unchanging Search Interface

Why Search Sucks & You Won't Fix It The Way You Think from me on my personal blog Daggle covers a session I did at Euro Foo Camp this week. It looks at how the search interface of major search engines has largely stayed unchanged over time. We're still using what I call the "DOS of Search." Interestingly, the Google Base change that just happened is a unique event -- the first major search engine to have an important property without that all-important search box on the home page. For me, it's just another sign of how Google Base is not intended to be a consumer-facing product, as I've written before.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:22 AM | Permalink

Google Base Drops Search Box As Part Of Usability Improvements

The Google Base Blog announced that they have updated the Google Base home page to make it easier to use. Garett Rogers over at Googling Google has a deeper look at those changes. Basically, merchants were confused on the different options available to them, so Google made it clearer. A significant change from a searcher's standpoint is that they have removed the search box from the Google Base home page. You can still search, but you need to be within Google Base already to do so, such as from the dashboard. This makes it probably the first Google search product not to feature a search box.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:45 AM | Permalink

August 23, 2006

Google Releases Google Base API

The Google Code blog announced that Google Base now has an API. You can access the API's details at http://code.google.com/apis/base/. The API is like other APIs in that you can now program your own applications to interact and interface with Google Base. So with this API you can create new Google Base data, edit, delete existing data, and query for data items. This can come in handy for retailers or anyone who wants data to be found within Google Base.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:48 AM | Permalink

August 21, 2006

Google Base Adds Click & Impression Metrics For Merchants

The Google Base Blog announced that Google Base has been tracking clicks and impressions since early June. They are now displaying that data to merchants, so that they can see the number of times their Google Base items are viewed (impressions), clicked on and the pageviews of that item. An impression occurs each time a Froogle or Google Base result is displayed for that item, a click is tracked each time someone clicks on that listed item and a pageview occurs each time someone views the items page. The data is mostly just updated daily, but you can use it to tweak your item titles, descriptions and pictures - to potentially increase your click-through rate.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:37 AM | Permalink

July 24, 2006

Google Base Becomes More eBay Like With Rich Text Feature

The Google Base blog announced Friday that Google Base's editor now has the ability to add rich text. Next time you log into Google Base to add or update your listings manually, you should see a WYSIWYG editor. It does not appear those who do bulk uploads, can pass along rich text.

It's important to note, however, that at this time, we're not enabling any scripting, data input controls, or frames. Also, HTML descriptions are only available for single item posts.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:22 AM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

Google Adds RSS To Google Base Results

I wrote about Google adding drop down menus to some search results at the Search Engine Roundtable last night and then discovered something new. At least I think it is new. If you go to a Google Base landing page, like this one for Clinical trials results, you may notice a new button at the top right of the page. The button is an RSS feed icon, that links to RSS results for that query refinement in Google Base. I personally have never seen that feature there before, I asked a few people and they haven't either - so I assume it is fairly new. So if you are an RSS junky, then you can subscribe to result sets that interest you in Google Base.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2006

Data Feed Submission To Google Base

I spent 3.5 hours Saturday night creating and lightly optimizing a completely new data feed (or bulk upload) to get PersonalProtectionStore's home security products up and running on Google Base. PersonalProtectionStore uses Yahoo! Merchant Solutions which allows me to download a catalog and associated information, but it's not in a format compatible with Google Base (superfluous fields in the catalog, non-uniform field names) and the dowload brings with it special characters and HTML code which cause listing errors. Additionally, there are many fields Google Base makes optional which my catalog did not include. These additional fields help with data feed optimization (DFO).

Froogle feed submission used to take a couple days (and a couple iterations) to process correctly, so I was pleasantly surprised to see my feed accepted in less than an hour. More importantly, by the time I checked back early the next morning, my products (and images - this used to be a major issue with Froogle) were up and running. My feed of 153 products consisted of 30 errors which weren't explained very well, but overall it was a smooth process. [It's important to note that I've submitted hundreds of feeds to multiple engines. There are plenty of people on the Google Base Help Discussion Group having problems.]

Submitting to Google Base gets you listed on Froogle. Being in Google Base or Froogle potentially gets you in the Google Onebox product search results in a regular Google search (just under the Sponsored Links and just above the organic results).

Here's one example: -Google Base result for ademco 20pi -Froogle result for ademco 20pi -Google OneBox result for ademco 20pi

While I've been critical of Froogle's Spam problem, and I'm not sure what to make of Froogle's recent update (more info soon), I did say in early April that it's time for merchants to submit their feed to Froogle (Google Base dashboard has now completely replaced the Froogle Merchant Center). My 3.5 hour experience only strengthens that argument.

For good or bad, many merchants are completely reliant on Google for sales, obsessing about optimizing their sites for better orgranic listings and feverishly spending on Google Adwords. Just don't forget about submitting your data feed to Google Base.

If you're having trouble with the your Google Base data feed, there are many companies which can help you out with feed management: ChannelAdvisor, ChannelIntelligence, Performics, Mercent, Vendio/Andale, Marketworks, RedZoneGlobal, MerchantAdvantage, etc.

Posted by Brian Smith at 3:12 PM | Permalink

June 1, 2006

Google Base Absorbs Froogle Feeds; Other Submission Systems Remain Independent

When I was at Google last this month, I got an update on Google Base for a forthcoming article. One of the things I was told was that Google Base was now the preferred way for merchants to submit content to Froogle. Really? Then why was Google still telling people on the Froogle site still to submit Froogle feeds? That oversight has now been corrected. As Garett Rogers notes, the feed submission mechanism formerly in the Google Merchant Center has now been replaced with Google Base submissions. Garett also highlights specific help pages about the change here. The consolidation is good, as Google Base is meant to be a central submission point of all content for Google, as I've written before (and SEW members, see also this). However, that goal still remains far off. Google Co-op, Google Sitemaps, Google Book Search and Google Scholar all remain independent ways to submit content of various types independently of Google Base, as the links for those services explain. I'll come back to this issue in more depth, in the future.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:28 AM | Permalink

May 24, 2006

Google Base UK & Germany Back To English US Version

Thomas Bindl notified me that Google Base UK and Germany are back to showing the English US based version of Google Base. We reported yesterday that http://www.google.co.uk/base/ and http://www.google.de/base/ had localized versions of Google Base. Google Base Germany even had the localized language front and center. This has been reverted back to the standard English base version for those two URLs.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:13 AM | Permalink

May 23, 2006

Google Base Live in UK & Germany

Philipp notes that Google Base is now live in the UK and Germany. The UK version is at http://www.google.co.uk/base/ and the German version is at http://www.google.de/base/.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:36 AM | Permalink

May 15, 2006

Advertise Google Base Listings in AdWords

Google Base blog announced that you can now advertise your Google Base results "right from the Google Base edit item page." You create the ad creative and Google will use your content and geo information to automatically target the appropriate keywords and geographic users for the items you are selling on Google Base. You can see a screen capture of this in action by clicking here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:23 AM | Permalink

April 5, 2006

Google Real Estate? It's Google Base Again, Google's Vertical Play

New reports of Google Real Estate are simply what we've covered before, Google Base results flowing into regular Google. But it's interesting to see how Google's delivering on the promise of Google Base as the engine that drives a variety of vertical search engines, plus how it's skipping the step of creating standalone sites for each vertical. I think those will still come, but the current moves that underscores what I've been saying to marketers for ages now -- pay attention to vertical search.

In the longer version of this post, I do a closer look at things such as:

What exactly vertical search is and why we call it that
How vertical search is part of the third generational jump to improve relevancy
Why the latest Google Base integration is part of the invisible tabs / vertical creep change marketers must understand
How Google Base will remain the master submission site for future verticals on Google, as I wrote before

You can expect to hear about more Google vertical search services that don't exist as standalone sites, as Google Recipes! Google Careers! Google Confusion! The UI Madness Continues previously from me covers more. Now Steve Rubel blogs about Google Autos, and as Nathan Weinberg rightly points out, there's a variety of other verticals you'll likely see pop-up. Meanwhile, there are people going to Google Base directly, and Hitwise has new stats up showing where they head after that (most to shopping sites).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:46 AM | Permalink

March 21, 2006

Google Base Creeping Into Main Search Results Page

GoodROI shows us an example of a search that brings up a Google Base search box, right at the top of the main search results at Google.com. The search that should show you this Google Base OneBox result is for homes for sale.

You should see a box below the sponsored listings that looks like this;

The "location" box is filled with my hometown automatically. The clickable link, "homes for sale" takes me to this landing page.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:30 PM | Permalink

March 15, 2006

No Credit Card Merchant Account? No Problem! How I Can Now Get Paid With Google Payments

Google is now allowing select Google Base users to use Google Payments as a substitute to a merchant account. The best way to describe Google Payments is calling it a PayPal alternative. I have been accepted to allow accept funds at Google Base with Google Payments. The set up was fairly easy, even thought I am not 100% done with the final verification of my bank account. I have wrote two articles on the process, the first is named Accepted by Google Base to Sell Through Google Payments, which describes how I set up my Google Base account to allow Google Payments payment option. The second article is named Buying and Accepting Payments at Google Base, which shows the process of a customer buying an item at Google base with Google Payments and then the back-end Google Base Dashboard processing of the Google Payment.

A couple of weeks ago we did post on A Look at Google Payments in Action that had a link to the TechCrunch screen captures. But this time, I personally was able to access it and I took my own screen captures.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:38 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Google Base Soon To Allow Buying & Selling Through Google's Own Payment System

Google Base is soon to allow merchants to sell through Google's own payment system, as well as allowing buyers to use the Google Accounts system to make purchases. A quick look doesn't show any of this live yet, but I'm sure examples will come soon. There is more information from Google here plus a note on how this fits into their overall payment system plans here. Want to sell on Google Base through its own system? Use this form to sign-up.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:13 PM | Permalink

January 18, 2006

Author of The Google Story, David Vise, Chats Google With Readers

Washington Post writer and the author of The Google Story, David Vise, chatted on WashingtonPost.com today about Google's most recent acquisition of radio ad firm DMarc (good background on how the technolgy works) and many other topics from where to send your ideas for new Google services to wheather or not a Google Calendar on it's way. The transcript of Vise's chat is available here.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:38 PM | Permalink

January 13, 2006

Google Testing New Refinement/Clustering Links -- Sign Of Google Base In Web Search?

Maybe it's new -- maybe not, but another Google query refinement test is out in the wild, as covered in our SEW Forums thread Google Refinement Keywords. There are links to screenshots showing that after a search, a "Quick results" area appears at the top of the page with links that seem to narrow refine results into clusters/topics. Something similar was seen last month.

The topics and implementation resemble what happens after a search at Google Base , such as with apple, which brings up this at the top of the page:

Refine your search: products housing homes for sale apartments wanted ads services

It makes me wonder if the refinement is going along with some Google Base material flowing into the main web index as part of a test.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:53 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2005

Google Base Switches To Force All Searchers Through Jump Pages

When Google Base first launched, one of my key questions was whether people could click on a entry and go directly to the submitter's web site. Yes, you could. Now, you can't. Instead, you're forced to go through a "jump" or intermediary page before proceeding, an "experiment" I hope goes away.

Jump Pages in Googlebase over at semi-Google Base rival Oodle covers more about the change, which Oodle wasted no time in having their PR firm spread the news out to various commentators. Oodle doesn't do jump pages, so it gives them a positive spin of following "traditional search engine etiquette," as the post says.

And fair enough. If you submitted to Google Base providing your own URL, you probably didn't expect the rules of how things worked to be changed in such a fundamental way despite the service being a beta.

Specifically, here are two examples to illustrate what's happened. These come from a search for cars on Google Base.

Cable Cars - Priceline.com http:// base.google.com/base/a/630669651497045204
Cars - CDconnection.com http:// www.cdconnection.com/bin/nph-search?part=60684&source=googbase

See the URL under the first one? In this case, the person submitting the item didn't provide their own URL. In that case, Google itself plays host to the listing, similar to how eBay might if you do an item for sale over there.

In the second one, the URL does NOT lead to Google Base, at least the visible URL. But click on that, and you're taken to this page at Google Base itself. If you want to proceed to the CDconnection web site, to the URL that's actually listed, you have to do a further click from the jump page that interrupts your journey.

That jump page is new. Prior to this, if you'd given Google Base an "item URL," then that is where people were sent directly.

Via InsideGoogle, Experimenting with navigation at the Google Base Blog says the change is part of an experiment and that more such changes might happen.

I hope they switch it back. At the very least, the display URL should change to show exactly where people are going. In other words, if everything is to route into Google Base, then show those jump page URLs. It's misleading, otherwise.

Even better, part of the move seems to be to allow people to see more details about an item, which can be shown on the jump pages. OK, add a "See Details" link similar to the "Report bad item" link that is shown for each item. Make than an option, but let people proceed directly if they don't choose that.

Google does say that Google Base items that flow into Google Web Search, Froogle and Google Local will NOT have jump pages (though anything you click on in Google Local already takes you to an intermediary page, like this).

Two things about that. First, as I've written before, what happens on Google Base itself is almost a non-issue. Google Base to me remains more the place people who are submitting content will be going. Actual searchers will be finding Google Base content through other services, such as the aforementioned Google Web Search, Froogle and Google Local.

It's kind of how Overture used to work to feed paid listing to Yahoo. Sure, some people stumbled into the Overture site. But the vast majority of searchers weren't encountering Overture paid listings there. They were finding them when they went to Yahoo.

So from this point of view, jump pages on Google Base aren't that big of a deal (though I still think they should go).

Second, and more important, what if Google decides it wants to do more experimenting elsewhere? Will direct URLs go away in any of these other services? The experiment at Google Base makes me nervous.

I already felt Google Base was sort of a waste of time for many people, making them resubmit and hand categorize content that Google's web crawler probably already gathered up.

Now it's possibly even worse. What happens when Google starts dealing with deciding which item to list in web search, the Google Base entry or the actual URL? Will they decide to dedupe in the "user interest" and list the Google Base entry?

If so, technically they won't have introduced jump pages in web search. Instead, they'll just have decide that it makes more sense to list Google Base-hosted pages in place of the original pages, if they have the choice.

Overall, it just makes me want to stay far away from Google Base if I've got content that's already being picked up in other ways.

Postscript: Google Revises Free Classifieds from MediaPost covers how Google Base has had a face lift, though the changes to me still do little to make the service that attractive for any particular type of vertical searching in particular. A link on the home page to Podcasts just brings up items of that nature with some slight customization. Compare that to feature-rich Yahoo Podcasts and tell me where you'll be searching.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forum thread, Google Base Uses Jump Pages.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:01 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

More On Microsoft Classifieds Service -- And Why Comparing To Google Base Doesn't Make Sense

More on the forthcoming Microsoft classified ads service is coming out, with some good remarks on why Microsoft's service may be more suited to classified searching than Google Base -- though as I'll explain, Google Base isn't what people should be using to measure Google's entry into the classified listings space.

Why Microsoft?s classifieds service will be better than Google Base from Charlene Li at Forrester has her talking about what's she's seen so far from Microsoft and how it's more suited to specialty classified searching.

Microsoft tests classifieds service from News.com and Microsoft tries classifieds from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer also give more details on how the system came to be, with Microsoft adamant it's not an instant Google Base clone, plus how it is designed specifically for classified ads.

I agree with Charlene. The Microsoft system probably will be better for classified ad searches, since it's specifically built for that. But comparing Google Base to any specialized search service is missing the point.

Google Base is, as I wrote before, the master way Google wants to accept content of all type. I don't expect that many people will really be turning to Google Base for specialized searching, however. Instead, as content of particular types grows, we'll see more spin-offs.

In other words, Google Base will help power a future Google Classifieds, a Google Jobs, a Google Housing, perhaps a Google Auctions and so on. These specialized services, standalone sites -- like Google's shopping search engine Froogle -- will have more refined features to help with the specific searching task you're doing.

In other words, it's not Google Base versus Microsoft Fremont or Craigslist. It's Google Classifieds (when it comes) versus Microsoft Fremont and Craigslist. That's when the comparisons really will begin in earnest.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:41 AM | Permalink

November 30, 2005

Google Base Gains An Official Blog & Wishing For A Master Google Blog Feed

Google Base Blog is another official blog from Google, where you can get official news and info on Google Base. It's also a good time to remind everyone that Google now has a variety of specialty official blogs that you'll find listed on the right hand side of the main Official Google Blog. That leads me to my wishlist plea. I don't want to subscribe to all these blogs individually. C'mon, Google, give us one master feed that sends us content from all your official blogs or feed everything from all your blogs also into the main Google Blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:56 AM | Permalink

November 29, 2005

Microsoft's "Google Base" is Code Named Fremont & MS Receives Patent For Semi-Auto Annotation of Multimedia Objects

Two items from Redmond today, Microsoft with a classified ads listing service in the works pegged as a rival to Google Base and Microsoft getting a patent on semi-automatic annotation of multimedia objects.

One of the pluses of being "first" is that from then on your service is compared to what may others might have in the works. That's just the case in this eWeek article by Ben Charny titled: Microsoft Testing Its Own 'Google Base'.

Microsoft Corp. said it is readying an online marketplace, code-named Fremont, which is apparently in response to a similar feature that rival Google Inc. introduced a few weeks ago.

Charny points out that a Freemont.live.com is up but can only be accessed and used by MS employees. Michael Arrington has a bit more on TechCrunch. He says to look for a public test in the next few weeks. Before TechCrunch, Greg Sterling posted about the system being an online classifieds move. More in Coming Soon: Windows Live Classifieds.

And while we're reporting on news from Redmond...

The US Patent and Trademark Office awarded a patent (not a patent app) to Microsoft today titled: Semi-automatic annotation of multimedia objects. It was first filed for in 2000 and is an interesting read, as patents go.

From the abstract: A multimedia object retrieval and annotation system integrates an annotation process with object retrieval and relevance feedback processes. The annotation process annotates multimedia objects, such as digital images, with semantically relevant keywords. The annotation process is performed in background, hidden from the user, as the user conducts normal searches. The annotation process is "semi-automatic" in that it utilizes both keyword-based information retrieval and content-based image retrieval techniques to automatically search for multimedia objects, and then encourages users to provide feedback on the retrieved objects. The user identifies objects as either relevant or irrelevant to the query keywords and based on this feedback, the system automatically annotates the objects with semantically relevant keywords and/or updates associations between the keywords and objects. As the retrieval-feedback-annotation cycle is repeated, the annotation coverage and accuracy of future searches continues to improve.

And from the summary: The user interface allows the user to identify multimedia objects that are more relevant to the query, as well as objects that are less or not relevant. The system monitors the user feedback using a combination of feature-based relevance feedback and semantic-based relevance feedback...During the retrieval-feedback-annotation cycle, the system adjusts the weights according to the user feedback, thereby strengthening associations between keywords and objects identified as more relevant and weakening the associations between keywords and objects identified as less relevant. If the association becomes sufficiently weak, the system removes the keyword from the multimedia object. Accordingly, the semi-automatic annotation process captures the efficiency of automatic annotation and the accuracy of manual annotation. As the retrieval-feedback-annotation cycle is repeated, both annotation coverage and annotation quality of the object database is improved.

For more on Content-Based Image Retrieval, this post might be of interest.

Postscript: Microsoft tries classifieds from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (spotted via Greg Linden) has nice details on the project with comments from Microsoft.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:11 PM | Permalink

November 21, 2005

Google Base Security Flaw Found

Google Closes Security Holes in Google Base from Netcraft covers an apparent security hole in Google base that may have exposed sensitive information stored on Google. The person discovering it details more here. Computerworld reports that the problem has been patched. Google's not cited as the source of that, nor is there any statement, but that's likely the case.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:00 AM | Permalink

November 16, 2005

Poking At Google Base

Well, Google Base is here. I think the most telling thing about Google Base for me will not be today, tomorrow, or even next month but five or six months from now, when we can see what kind of content is being added, how much content is being added, where the content is being accessed, and if people (both users and publishers) are still paying any attention to the service.

All of this might be fun for the search geek, but I don't see the typical person going through the motions to add bits of content. Just yesterday, noted analyst Safa Rashtchy said of eBay:

While eBay has brought millions into online commerce, it is still too complicated for sellers who balk at the listing process and for buyers who don't want purchase from someone located far away, he adds. So, the question is, will Google Base be any different. I'll be honest, I was both surprised and intrigued by Safa's comments about eBay and it being too complicated for sellers. On the heels of today's announcement, his thoughts might also serve as a reminder for the search geek to remember that what we think is easy, fun, and simply available for use remains a mystery to many people. Perhaps we can leave the ease of use service to some future Google Automat?

The big news about Google Base is that it will help companies, news organizations, publishers, etc,, get content and links into the Google system, quickly. So far, I've spotted material from CareerBuilder.com (help wanted ads) The NY Times, (real estate listings), Homescape Network, and volunteer listings from Idealist.

The other issue for me is, where does the content go aside from the Google Base database? Where will it be seen? It's up to Google to make that determination. Will it be another OneBox on a web results page? Or will the listings be merged within regular results? These are issues Google itself says it is still resolving.

Spam will likely be rampant, especially in the optional "labels" (aka tags) section. Precisely how these labels are used is unknown, but I'm guessing their use is for helping determining relevancy to a specific query. Also, will someone or something be watching for copyright issues if/when someone reposts an in-copyright article from a magazine? It's worth mentioning that every item has a link to report it as a "bad item" (violates copyright, mislabeled or misleading, spam, contains or links to adult content and is not labeled correctly, etc.) Great, now does Google have the human resources to check out each report in a timely manner and then respond properly? Google appears to be hiring temps to do customer support these days (here's one for Gmail and another for overall product support) so I wouldn't be surprised we will soon see listings for Google Base customer service openings. Of course, job openings and a good customer service are not always the same thing.

Remember, what's contributed to Google Base is all public information. If you use it to create an itinerary of your trip, it's public info. What about offering a Google Base that only certain users (ones you pick can see)? Your own personalized Google Base community database of sorts.

Posting

Posting items to Google Base (non-bulk uploaded files) involves a a number of steps. By the way, a bulk-upload is defined as 10 or more items. In short, you select from a list of predefined "item types" or create your own, fill out a form and submit your content. Vocabulary control could become an issue here.

Bulk Uploads

I didn't have any time to try this tool but I did notice that a user can FTP directly to the Google Base server. Material must be supplied in Tab-delimited, RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, or Atom 0.3 formats.

Show Me the Money--Where's the Revenue Stream?

Well, more content means more places to place ads. However, I didn't see any ads on Google Base results pages while testing. Also, on an Google Base example slide I saw from Google, a field for "Payment" was listed. Perhaps Google plans to allow people to sell items, services, etc. and then take a cut of the sale (whatever it is) using their Google Wallet system How's that for speculation! Update: While no Google payment method is in place (yet?) and you can't use Google (yet?) to run a transaction, I did find a spot where you can list what forms of payment (Visa, Amex, Cash, Wire, etc.) you offer. The payment option appears for certain (but not all) categories including "Products" and "Services."

Searching Google Base

After you search, you can sort by relevance, date posted (newest), date posted (oldest). You'll also see "refinements" below each listing title.

For example, I could click refinements like "management," "business development," "verified," "location," etc.

By the way, when I refined by location, a box appeared allowing me to search in a specific location (within xxx amount of miles of xxx)

It would be useful if each attribute would also contain a pop-over with a definition of what it means. For example, what does "verified" mean in my specific search situation?

Final Thoughts

As I said at the beginning of this post, it's a wait and see issue for me with Google Base. Let's see how much and from where content is being added five or six months from now. It will also be interesting and maybe even fun to watch how some try to "game" the Google Base system and how Mountain View responds.

That said, I'm glad that at least in some form, Google has chosen to use a more structured form of tagging (the attributes section of a entry, NOT the labels section) to help make information more searchable and accessible. The questions are will the typical user take advantage of all of this or just use the basics. Cataloging info, or if you prefer, adding good metadata isn't always easy.

Bottom Line?

Those with lots of content now have a way to add it to the Google database. It will likely be a new responsibility for the SEM when he or she is not working on their Google Sitemaps or feed to Froogle (-: It could also give library catalogers moonlighting opportunities. (-:

Postscript 1: It appears most of the Google's advanced syntax works with Google Base: + intitle:

+ inurl:

+ site:

Also, you can search by author by using the authorid:[foo]. For example the authorid for the NY Times is 296700. You can find the author id in the url of every content provider.

Postscript 2: It will be worth watching to see if people try to add their data using multiple Google services including Google's regular crawl, SiteMaps, Froogle feed, Google Local entries, Blogger, etc. Will publishers tweak the data to make each entry slightly unique? How will Google handle duplicates or items that are VERY close to duplicates?

Postscript 3: Let's not forget that Google also has "deals" (as does Yahoo with their Content Acquisition Program) to gain direct access to large amounts of data for inclusion in their database. The OCLC Worldcat deal is an example.

Postscript 4: I wonder if O'Reilly has alread signed an author to write Google Base Hacks? (-:

Postscript 5: In case you're wondering, GoogleBase.com has been a registered domain since June, 2005.

Postscript 6: See also Danny's long write-up on the service, Google Base Live, Accepting Content, which is today's SearchDay article. Google also now has an official post on their blog about the launch.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Google Base Opens To Submissions

Posted by Gary Price at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Google Base Goes Live

Google Base, which some people got an early glimpse at last month, is now live (or supposed to be) for anyone to play with. So what's in it, and what's it all mean? Google Base Live, Accepting Content takes you through this new way of submitting content to Google, and also see Gary's Poking At Google Base for his more up close look at searching on the Base.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, Google Base Opens To Submissions

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

Riffing on GoogleBase

Over at MediaPost, David Berkowitz has some interesting commentary on the potential ramifications of GoogleBase, the sometimes-on but still mostly offline service that Gary blogged about last week.

Google Base aims to turn Google into the single source for any site where you'd ever search, raising a middle finger to every vertical search and local information site in the process.

Berkowitz says that while the new service could potentially be a major threat to eBay, Craigslist and other auction and classified services, a lot of potential obstacles remain.

There are, of course, many obstacles to this goal. For one, each of the other sites mentioned has developed a strong following for any number of reasons, and all have built a high degree of trust with their users. Whether it's appreciating the free shipping and recommendation engines at Amazon, the auction system at eBay, the stark look and feel of Craigslist, or the content at CNET, people have a relationship with these properties that won't be easily replicated.

Google Base will probably tie into other Google initiatives, including local search, Froogle, the anticipated online payment system it's developing to rival eBay's PayPal, and the Wi-Fi network rollout (first San Francisco, then the world). It will require coordinated efforts unlike anything Google has had to attempt to date. Some of its services are connected, as Google News and Froogle listings sometimes appear atop the engine's natural search results, but that is nowhere nearly as complicated as the operation Google will need to pull off with Google Base.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:11 PM | Permalink

October 25, 2005

Google Base: It's An Early-Stage Test Project from Google

UPDATE: We've postscripted (see below) with an official statement from Google about the Google Base test.

Lots and lots of talk in the blogosphere today about the new (is it?) Google Base. As always, Barry does a great job pulling it all together here. What is Google Base? From what screen caps show it's a new database service that Google is making available to the public. Sell a house? Sell a car? Whatever. Lookout eBay, However, it might be more than that. Look

Any type of info could be posted and attributes added to it to make it easier to find. Google is getting into a bit of semi-structured info. I've said for a long time that for tags to really succeed, a more structured form of tagging would be needed. In this case, a user could develop their own search fields (the structure) and then add the needed info. Sounds like Google has got the right idea. Of course, that doesn't answer the question, will people take advantage of the additional structure versus just tossing in random keywords into a single field.

OK, now back to Google Base.

From SER: This new tool will be introduced during the 'Google Zeitgeist'05 Partner Forum' to be held today at Google HQ in California. We expect that 'Google Purchases' [hey, I spotted that domain two weeek's ago] --the new micropayments service among users-- will be also introduced as a complement to 'Google Base'.

As of 12pm PDST, the system is not online and even a few screen shots are gone.

Phillip has much more over at Google Blogoscoped including screen caps from Dirson and others. Btw, Google has owned the domain Googlebase.com since June.

Want to discuss, check out this thread in the SEW Forums.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson shared the following with me via email. Looks like it's a test that also did what Google does so well, keep people talking.

This is an early-stage test of a product that enables content owners to easily send their content to Google. Like our web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time.

Postscript 2: OK, so that's the "official word" from Google. However, the WSJ's Kevin Delaney has more in the article (sub only): Google Tests New Service To Build Content Database. Key Points from Kevin's article:

"Google Base would let users submit information to a searchable Google database, according to images of Web pages from the service that were posted on several Web logs and which Google confirmed were legitimate."
"But the existence of Google Base heightens anticipation of the Mountain View, Calif., company's long-expected entry into direct competition with online auctioneer eBay, which also owns a minority stake in classified listings site Craigslist Inc."
"It's going to slowly chip away at eBay's growth and opportunities, especially in international markets where there is a tremendous amount of growth at Google," said Brian Blair, principal at Wedge Partners LLC, a New York research firm.

Ok, now let the speculation continue! (-: Is it time to forget crawlers for certain types of content? Will the typical user take the time to send material directly to Google? What about eBay? Just some of the MANY questions, no answers, and Google isn't talking. Again, the idea of allowing a user to actually develop a structure for the data sure seems to make sense to me.

Postscript 3: More from News.com

Posted by Gary Price at 1:04 PM | Permalink

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