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Free Website Content - What is Google Base
What is Google Base
By S. Housley
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. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage
http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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This article may be used freely in opt-in
publications and websites, provided that the resource box
is included and the links are active. A courtesy copy of
the issue or a link to any online posting would be greatly
appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
Additional articles available for publication available
at http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm
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