Googlelicious! The new GoogleBase - an Introduction
Todd Levi
It's not an article directory, it's not a search engine and it's
not a bird, a plane or even superman. Then what exactly is this
new "content home" from the Google team and what does it mean
for web site marketing? Let's get it straight from the horse's
mouth: "Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all
types of online and offline content that we'll host and make
searchable online. You can describe any item you post with
attributes, which will help people find it when they search
Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they
may also be included in the main Google search index and other
Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local."
The new GoogleBase is a database to help people get all kinds of
information about anything. It's a throwback of sorts that
allows people to publish anything they want and then have it be
found, not by relevant search engine rankings and optimization
of webpages as we know it, but by attributes. Say for instance
you have class information you want posted for a basket weaving,
simply change the attributes searched for to "Basketweaving 101
with instructor Baskethead", tell folks in the class what these
attribute are and when they go to GoogleBase.com and search for
it, BLAMO - they have found your information! This is the theory
behind the giant's new website anyhow.
One major difference between this form of publishing and
standard web page publishing is that you give Google your
information and they host it as opposed to you hosting it on
your server. This means everything in the base is self
contained. This isn't all together true though, websites can be
posted to the base through direct link postings to the site. A
simple search for SEO in the base will show that some of the
results still go to hosted websites outside of the base.
A picture is worth a thousand words! With GoogleBase you can add
a picture that will be displayed in the search result pages
making this type of searching more attractive that normal text
based searching.
What does this mean for SEO Experts? Since its launch in
November 2005, we are not sure what effects this will have on
SEO, yet. Google does say that based on a postings relevancy
your submissions to the base might also get included in Google's
search engine, Google Local and Froogle however this is still
yet to be seen.
My first impressions of GoogleBase are good. This type of
"information at your fingertips" will certainly help in a lot of
ways. Look out though; the porn industry is already on the
GoogleBase prowl using it as a medium for mischievous purposes.
David Berkowitz from SearchInsider insightfully says that
GoogleBase could potentially cause problems for AdWords
marketing at Google as products can now have a free medium of
advertising: "This could conceivably cause problems for its
AdWords business. If a small business can market its products
and services through Base for free, why would it use AdWords?
There are obviously some kinks to work out."
Remember: As Google changes its face, so does the rest of the
internet. Let's watch this beta database program over the next
few months and see what happens.
About the author:
Todd Levi is a search engine optimization specialist and web
designer found at http://www.LeviSolutions.com. He also supports
an internet marketing and SEO blog found at
http://SEO-Marketing.LeviSolutions.com
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