Google Base – Come Again?

I just discovered Google Base. Where has this been hiding? At first glance, it looks like a addendum to Google for the purpose of basically flea-marketing your unwanted goods, but no – you can post PDF files, articles, etcetera – all with links back to your url.

They key? Attributing, which is pretty much like tagging in the sense that certain things begin to be grouped and categorized by how well you tag. I have got to try this out and see if it makes a difference. I can’t help but wonder, if Google displays these on Product Search or their general search engine, what criteria do they use, and why?

What if I write a lot of articles about working from home? Might I start popping up on search merely because I tag cleverly? What a quickie way to SEO – between Google Base and Knol I might be home free.

I’m probably oversimplifying the whole process. I’m sure Google Base isn’t set up purely for my benefit – I just haven’t pinned down yet what the real aim might be. I don’t quite buy the ‘this is a freebie from us to you’ Google party line – and am suspicious.

And they do make a point of saying your product or items may appear on Google main web search, so I’m sure they have thought of scenarios where that might conceivably happen. Be nice to be in on the secret…

Upon further investigation, Google Base may have some merit all of its own just as a product search. I can’t for the life of me puzzle out how exactly Product Search works, but it looks as though Google has managed to come up with yet another pet project that mimics already existing programs, just so they can be accused of playing favorites to their own creation.

Some serious tinkering around is apparently needed to discover just how Google Base stands up against competitors, and where results from the program might land on the SERPs.

A notation also reads that ‘you don’t have to have a website to use Google Base – just a Google account (of course). Anything you submit to Google base without a url will be hosted on a special url. What does THAT mean? I’m curious, now, and will investigate at first opportunity. I just have to determine what item or product would be the best trial for this Google appendage.

Give me time, I’ll puzzle it out – or feel free to let us know your forays into Google Base – do they wear camouflage? Go on training exercises? Do you have to drop and give ‘em fifty?

Or is it just a gathering of folks at the flea circus outside the trailer park, trading old ‘Vettes and passing a bottle of Jack under the light of a haphazardly strung bulb? Is there anything of substance, here, or is it just Google’s relentless need to know, organize and categorize everything that this is all about?

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