What is Google Base?
In order for Google Base to succeed, it will need the
support of both publishers and users. Quite frankly, most
are having difficulty seeing the value in Google Base.
Google Base, is a new service in beta, from Google that
requests that publishers add their information to the
“Google Base”. Google Base is hosted by Google. All types of
item submissions are accepted online and off-line
information in a variety of formats. Google Base uses
tagging similar to that found in many social-bookmarking
applications, though Google refers to it as labels. The
labels are used by Google to categorize or add attributes to
the information, that better describes the content. The more
popular specific attributes become, the more often Google
will suggest them when others post the same or similar
items. Additionally, items that become more popular will
show up as suggested item types in the “Choose an Existing
Item Type” drop down menu.
Based on the relevance of the submitted items, they may also
be included in the main Google search index, and other
Google products such as Froogle and Local Google Search.
Because the individual submitting the content can define the
content using labels, the system is left open to rampant
spam. While there does appear to be a “checks and balances”
in place with each listing showing a “report a bad link”
button, that allow searches to report and indicate that
content has been improperly tagged, contains adult content,
or is otherwise inappropriate content. It is unclear whether
Google will create a hierarchy of web surfers. DMOZ and many
Wiki systems, create a leadership structure of users to
minimize spam, but the fact remains that both systems are
prone to abuses. It is unclear whether Google will implement
a similar system.
Google Base is currently available only in English. Web
surfers can experiment with Google Base and browse through
existing items at any time. However, to submit items, a
Google Account must be created. Google Base will currently
accept bulk uploads in CSV, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3
formats.
Content providers who already have RSS feeds can easily
submit their content to Google Base without requiring a lot
of additional work. Unfortunately at this time, each Google
Account only allows for 10 feeds to be submitted to Google
Base. Many content publishers have merged content topics and
multiple RSS feeds into a single RSS feed. This is
inefficient and may ultimately hurt the structure of Google
Base, as each RSS feed may contain items that are
unrelated.
One nice feature of Google Base has is a geo-targeting
search feature that produces results for a very specific
region. However at this time many submission do not include
a product location so the geo-targeting feature, while a
nice addition, will need some refinement as well.
Google Base currently produces far less relevant searches
than a vertical search engine. Why Google is relying on
tagging (labels) rather than the contextual spidering makes
little sense. And why Google has taken the step of content
hosting is unclear. Search Engines historically devalue
duplicate content, the Google hosting may provide a unique
twist to the duplicate content debates.
While Google Base is still in beta, it is clear that it
needs to be polished. In order to garner the support from
publishers and users Google articulating the purpose and
intent of Google Base might help in gaining support.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts.
