Google Base

Google Base is a database provided by Google into which any user can add almost any type of content, such as text, images, and structured information in formats such as XML, PDF, Excel, RTF, or WordPerfect. 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 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. Because information about the service was leaked before public release, it generated much interest in the information technology 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. 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.

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.