Google Data

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.