Google Base and “Free” Enterprise

Google Base has a feature that sounds like it would help webmasters. You can request a multi-user account. Only problem is, if you do, you may find yourself limited in ways that really don’t make sense.

One of my clients has two sites. They contain similar items, but no duplicates. Each item on each site is completely unique, and one of a kind.

Google Base denied our initial request for a multi-user account with those two sites. Their claim is that they have too similar items. Odd, since each one is entirely unique, and since they are all handcrafted items, no one would ever consider them to be duplicates. Further, one site has antiques, the other has contemporary items.

They also denied us because two other sites had two items that were similar, while all the rest was different. It would seem that rather than indexing the entire web, as they say they want to do, they only want to index what they consider to be unique. Even though services are distinctly different, they consider them to be the same because they are in the same category.

So before you request a multi-user account, make sure you differentiate the sites enough that someone who cannot think for themselves can tell the difference. Otherwise you’ll be denied the account.