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.