A One-Year Status Report on Google Base - But Who Knows About it?
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So great. Google Base is free, easy to use, and has tools for enterprising webmasters. But does anyone know or care about its existence, and is it taking a bite out of eBay's enormous market share?
The answer is a bit muddled because it is somewhat difficult to get concrete metrics on what is essentially a Google subdomain. One segment of the population that is definitely aware of Google Base is the online auction marketing crowd. eBay sellers are keenly watching the development of this upstart online entity as well as its accompanying payment system, coined Google Checkout.
Their main area of concern centers on verification and security. eBay sellers have reported that fraudsters are copying entire product feeds, with accompanying images and descriptions, and offering them up as their own. In addition, established auction markets worry about how Google Base sellers will be identified, verified, and vetted. This is a crucial aspect for any enterprising auction-style web portal because it allows the buyer to find quality sources and it allows the seller to establish a reputation and leverage that reputation into increased sales.
These user opinions are good for gauging the appeal and feasibility of Google Base within a narrow segment of the population, but it does little to answer questions regarding its ability to challenge eBay and find a large source of traffic with which to promote itself.
But here's some interesting insight that I came across, which should shed light on both issues. Internet users make roughly 400-500 million local searches per month, and Google captures roughly 40-50 percent of those searches. That's a lot of people searching on Google, and if Google Base listings show up on Google.com and Froogle, as is the plan, all those searches could end up on a Google Base product listing. That's a whole lot of traffic, and while it pales in comparison to eBay's robust search rate of well over 2 billion per month (according to their investor relations data) it's still a significant piece of the consumer search pie.
And when you consider that Google Base listings may eventually appear on Google's regular search, it becomes clear that the sky is the limit in terms of reach.
However, according to the folks over at Hitwise, traffic to Google Base has more or less flat-lined. In fact, some analysts believe that Google's sponsored listings within its search feature are more of a competitive threat to eBay than its Google Base offering.
Still, despite these early doldrums, when Base is properly cultivated, it should become a much more legitimate threat to eBay's supremacy.
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