Here is what I found in one of my online journal’s !!!
Google found to be testing classified ads
San Francisco, Oct. 27: An online classified service being tested by Google set off intense speculation on Wednesday after a Web site for the service was accidentally made public and discovered by a computer programmer on Monday.
The service, which was named Google Base and was for a time accessible at base.google.com, described itself as “Google’s database into which you can add all types of content.”
“We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.” The new service could automatically funnel listings on all kinds of subjects and display them as part of the company’s sponsored ad links on the right side of pages displaying search results from Google queries.
Word of the new service, which would potentially compete with newspapers as well as with online classified services like those on eBay and Craigslist, drove eBay’s stock down about 5 per cent at points during the day. The Google Base page was discovered on Monday by a British programmer, who said he had created an automatic programme to se-arch for subdomains accessible at Google.com. The company took down the test site and replaced the page with a ‘403’ forbidden-access response.
Google released a statement suggesting that the purpose of the test site was to make it simpler for Google customers to post content on Google. “We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google, ” the company said. “Like our Web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps programme, we are working to provide content owners an easy way to give us access to their content. We’re continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don’t have anything to announce at this time.”