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How Do I Get My Products into Google Base?

  • July 26th, 2007

I’m glad you asked! If you read my previous post about Google Base, you’ve already seen how having your products listed there can dramatically increase your exposure in Google’s regular search results.

Getting your products listed is not difficult.

1. Go to http://base.google.com. If you already use Google services such as Google Checkout, Gmail, or Webmaster Central, you can use your Google Account information to sign in to Base. If you don’t use any of the Google services, or if you simply want to keep your Google Base account separate from your Gmail or other Google stuff, just go ahead and create a new account (you’ll need a second email address if you choose this latter option). Once you’ve created your Google Account, go to http://base.google.com and sign in.

2. Once signed in, you will be presented with a drop down menu asking what kind of items you want to list. Choices include products, vehicles, personals, housing, jobs, etc. Because I sell books and DVDs, I chose products. Choose what best fits your item, or create your own item type. Click Next. (If you want to upload your items in bulk, you should click the “Post multiple items with a bulk upload file” link. This option allows you to provide Base with a properly formatted XML file that contains information about all your products. More about this later.)

3. What happens next depends on which item type you chose. Assuming you chose “Products,” you will be presented with a form where you will enter information about your product, such as price, condition, brand, etc. as well as a text box for a full description (HTML allowed) and also a place to upload a picture of your product. You will also be required to supply other information, such as what payment methods you accept, and when the item expires (maximum is 30 days). Click Preview to see what your product will look like in the results pages, Save Draft to save your product without publishing it to Google’s search results, or Publish to go live with your product.

4. That’s it! Just rinse and repeat for each of your products.

Bulk Uploads
This is the way to go if you have more than about twenty products. If you already have your products in some kind of database, find out how to get your product listing into a properly formatted XML file for Google Base. If you are using a shopping cart for online sales, find out if your shopping cart developer has a Google Base plugin available, or if third party developers have created a mod or add-on that adds this functionality. I use the EcommerceTemplates shopping cart, and Mike Beebe, a third party developer, has created Google Base Product Lister, an excellent add-on to the shopping cart which extracts product information from the database and automatically formats it into an XML file. I then upload this XML file to Google Base and within a few hours all my products are published and searchable not only in Google Base but also in Google’s regular search engine results. It literally saves me hours of work.

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