Author Archive

by Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

One mark of a strong community is the ability to help each other out, and that's one reason we have launched the Google Base Help Discussion group. If you have questions about Google Base, there's a pretty good chance someone else has encountered something similar, so please consider this an alternative source of support. Tap into a knowledge network of providers and their insights and experiences to resolve questions and problems.

From time to time, the Google Base team will post messages here, and we encourage all members to share thoughts and ideas and to interact with each other. Don't delay - why not join the group right now. The "join this group" link can be found just below the group title at http://groups.google.com/group/base-help-discussion. And before you start, remember to read the group charter.

by Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

One formatting issue we've often come across when processing bulk uploads is the presence of invalid "location" values. Our bulk upload specifications mention that a valid location value is formatted as follows:

Street, city, state, postal code, and country

We understand complete addresses are not always available or applicable for certain items, so we accept partial addresses as well. So how can you find out if your location values will be accepted? Here's a tip you can use to check your values:

Before you submit your bulk upload file, try entering a few of your location values at http://local.google.com/. Your location is considered valid if it returns a hit on the Google Local map. If you don't get a hit, try modifying your location according to the suggestions Google Local makes. If you still can't get a hit, read the information in this Google Local help article.

We also use Google Local resources to help determine if location values in a file are valid. If your address works there, it should work in Google Base as well.

by Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

You may have noticed the recent removal of the URL field that appeared near the bottom of the single-item posting form. We used the URL from this field to point search results for your items to pages on your website. Now you can achieve the same results using a custom attribute.

Custom attributes can be added at the bottom of the "Details" section of the single-item posting form. Here are a few things to keep in mind before you create one. There are no restrictions placed on the name you select for your attribute, but we do suggest that it be descriptive of the URL value it contains. The data type below the custom attribute name field should be changed from "Text" to "Web URL," and the URL you insert should be valid and begin with either http:// or https://.

We feel that removing the URL field and having you create custom attributes ultimately gives you more control over the data you submit to Google Base. It also increases the visibility of your web site URL by including it in the attribute section of single-item pages.

For those of you who bulk upload your items to Google Base, no changes have been made and users will continue to be directed to the URLs that you specify in your bulk upload files.

By Jen Peng, Google Base Operations

In addition to some of the more common information types that are bulk uploaded such as Vehicles, Jobs, and Recipes, Google Base also accepts files that include business location information. Known as Google Local business locations bulk uploads, these files contain addresses, phone numbers, and operating hours for physical business locations. Users will find this information in Google Local search results for queries like:

Best Buy near zip code 55305

Ace Hardware near Mason, Ohio

Business locations bulk uploads are meant for businesses that have 10 or more physical locations. Note that we only accept these particular bulk upload files in tab-delimited text (.txt) format -- and that it may take up to 6 weeks for your locations to appear in Google Local. You can find more information on how to correctly format, save, and upload a Google Local business locations bulk upload file here. If your business has less than 10 locations, you can add your information through Google Local Business Center.

Google Base also accepts product inventory details for each of your business locations that users can find in Froogle Local Shopping search results. To add your local store information, submit a "Products" bulk upload to Google Base that includes price and location values for each of your products. Learn more about listing your product inventory here.

By Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

Custom item types help increase the variety of items found in Google Base and give us a better understanding of the type of data you want to submit. Some examples of custom item types created recently are Podcasts, Protein databases, Tickets, and Blogs. As custom item types become more widely accepted and used by different providers, we're specifying a set of attributes to create new standard item types. Soon, we hope to release 40 new item types based on how people have used custom item types so far.

We strongly encourage you to create new item types when your items don't match our defined types. It's important to note, however, that you shouldn't create custom item types to be more specific than those we've defined. For example, don't use "Apartments for rent" in place of our "Housing" item type. We defined our standard item types with attributes that should cover all the information you want to provide. If these attributes are not sufficient, we'd prefer that you create custom attributes instead of new item types.

Here's a list of standard item types available now:

by Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

A common request we receive is to improve error messaging so that it's easier to troubleshoot bulk upload formatting issues. We're working to increase the variety of errors we display, and we're also creating additional documentation to help you resolve these issues more quickly. Next week we'll release a couple of updates:

- Error messages for invalid locations found in bulk upload files will be visible.
- The maximum number of errors we display will increase from 25 to 100.

We'll address error reporting for XML files too, by providing more details and improved instructions for resolving common problems with these types of files.

Submitting large amounts of data using well-formatted and error-free bulk upload files makes updating your items an easy process. We're confident the changes coming soon will make submitting data less of a headache.

By Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

Last week we migrated all Froogle Merchant Center accounts to Google Base. Doing this has generated some interesting commentary about our plans for Froogle, so here's what the migration means for you Froogle merchants. First off, we are not replacing Froogle with Google Base. All your product information will still be accessible at http://froogle.google.com/. The migration simply changes the place you go to submit and maintain your product information.

What Google Base does is provide several benefits compared to the Froogle Merchant Center, including the ability to:

- submit single products to Froogle without submitting a product feed
- edit your product details directly through your account
- submit feeds in additional formats such as RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom
- increase product details using custom and standard Base attributes

You can continue to submit your feed to Google Base without making any changes. And please note that by including Base attributes in your file, you increase the information you offer, and users get a more effective way to find your products. You can look at the available attributes for the Products item type here. You're also free to use attributes listed for other item types if they're applicable to your product, and create your own custom attribute if you can't find one that applies to some information you want to submit.

For more on the migration, please see our list of common questions. We also encourage you to discuss your thoughts and opinions about the migration and Google Base at the Google Base Help Discussion group.

By Steven De La O, Google Base Operations

Discrepancies in dashboard totals have left quite a few of you wondering about the status of your items in Google Base. This confusion is caused by the different totals displayed on the Active items and Bulk upload files pages of your account dashboard. The item details on the Bulk upload files page include the total number of items in your bulk upload file and how many of them were successfully processed. In some cases, this number will differ from the total displayed on the Active items page.

Example 1: Bulk upload file details
Example 2: Active items total for the same file