'Google Base' Has Grand Ambitions

New Project Expands Google's Reach — To Nearly Everything

(AP)  Submitters are invited to choose from an existing set of item types or can enter their own category. In another step, each entry can be tagged with labels that are either suggested by Google or defined by the user.

If a recipe is submitted, the initial category might be "Recipe" while tags could be created describing the type of cuisine, serving size, level of spiciness and main ingredient type.
People looking for recipes could then refine results by clicking on the tags.

Google Base attempts to get around the problem of spelling variations by suggesting attributes based on what other people have associated with their information in the past, Kamangar said.

"This is really an experiment for us," he said. "We're going to be very open to shifting and changing it depending on how it goes."

A handful of commercial and noncommercial sites have been testing the service for several weeks.

The World Resources Institute has submitted information on a 5 million-record database on sustainable development for 200 countries over a period of up to a century.

"This gives us another way to index our information and hopefully allow our users to find some connections between some issues they haven't seen before," said Amy Cassara, senior associate at the Washington, D.C.-based institute.

She said sending information to Google is simpler than building the site so that Google's automated crawler captures the information.

"It puts the provider of the information in control of what kind of content the public can see," Cassara said, adding the group is optimistic Google Base will drive more traffic to the institute's information and site.

CareerBulder.com also is hoping to make its data — job listings — accessible to more people, said Richard Castellini, CareerBuilder's vice president of consumer marketing.

Other businesses offering classifieds also might find Google Base a helpful way to increase traffic, but that decision could end up haunting them if Google decides to launch tools to complete transactions, said Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research.

"It's like getting in bed with enemy," she said.