Google Base
Encyclopedia
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
provided by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
into which any user can add almost any type of content, such as text, images, and structured information in formats such as XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
, Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
, RTF
Rich Text Format
The Rich Text Format is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft Corporation since 1987 for Microsoft products and for cross-platform document interchange....
, or WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
. As of September 2010, the product has since been promoted to Google Merchant Center. If Google finds it relevant, submitted content may appear on its shopping search engine, Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
or even the web search. The piece of content can then be labeled with attributes like the ingredients for a recipe or the camera model for stock photography
Stock photography
Stock photography is the supply of photographs licensed for specific uses. It is used to fulfill the needs of creative assignments instead of hiring a photographer. Today, stock images can be presented in searchable online databases. They can be purchased and delivered online...
. Because information about the service was leaked before public release, it generated much interest in the information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
community prior to release. Google subsequently responded on their blog with an official statement:
- "You may have seen stories today reporting on a new product that we're testing, and speculating about our plans. Here's what's really going on. We are testing a new way for content owners to submit their content to Google, which we hope will complement existing methods such as our web crawl and Google Sitemaps. We think it's an exciting product, and we'll let you know when there's more news."
A major component of Google Base is acting like a online classified ads service, such as Craigslist
Craigslist
Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities featuring free online classified advertisements, with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....
. However it has also been used for such items as protein structures, current events, real estate, recipes, people profiles, and more.
Files can be uploaded to the Google Base servers by browsing your computer or the web, by various FTP methods, or by API coding. Online tools are provided to view the number of downloads of the user's files, and other performance measures.
On October 8, 2009, it was announced that Google Base's separate search page would be discontinued.http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/retiring-google-bases-separate-search.html
On December 17, 2010, it was announced that Google Base's API is deprecated in favor of a set of new APIs known as Google Shopping APIs. http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-shopping-apis-and-deprecation-of.html
See also
- List of Google services and tools
- Resources of a ResourceResources of a ResourceResources of a Resource is an XML format for describing the content of an internet resource or website in a generic fashion so this content can be better understood by search engines, spiders, web applications, etc. The ROR format provides several pre-defined terms for describing objects like...
– ROR - Base FeederBase FeederBase Feeder is a Microsoft Windows based utility to create Atom and RSS XML feed files for submission to Google Base.To bulk submit items, you need to create and submit a specially formatted XML file...
– Software to create bulk submission Google Base Feeds