Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at 5:30 PM
By Steven D. in Google Base Operations:
If you've got a lot of data to submit to Google Base, here are some tips on bulk uploading–it's the most efficient way to get a large amount of data into the program. (If you're all about posting single items, there's more here.)
Right now, we accept bulk uploads in tab-delimited and XML file formats. If you submit an XML file you can format your data using RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, or Atom 0.3. When submitting your data in any of these formats, it's important to use attributes to help you provide as much meaningful information about your items as possible.
To make using attributes as easy as possible, we provide a pre-defined set of attributes that can be used to give us basic information about your items. For example, a bulk upload of a list of restaurant reviews can contain pre-defined attributes such as author, name_of_item_reviewed, and rating. These attributes will help people find your content easily through specialized searches. For more details on pre-defined attributes, check out the info on tab-delimited or XML.
If our pre-defined attributes aren't enough, you can create and submit your own custom set. These can include whatever additional details you choose. Just create a custom attribute and add the pertinent information when you upload. There's no limit to the number of custom attributes you can use; all we ask is that your format these custom attributes correctly (using our specifications for tab-delimited or XML.
A couple of final notes: We do plan to support Atom 1.0 in the nearfuture, and are working on an expanded list of pre-defined attributesto make it easier to include all your data without going custom. Fornow, we strongly encourage you to provide as many pre-defined andcustomized attributes in your bulk uploads as you think you need.
If you've got a lot of data to submit to Google Base, here are some tips on bulk uploading–it's the most efficient way to get a large amount of data into the program. (If you're all about posting single items, there's more here.)
Right now, we accept bulk uploads in tab-delimited and XML file formats. If you submit an XML file you can format your data using RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, or Atom 0.3. When submitting your data in any of these formats, it's important to use attributes to help you provide as much meaningful information about your items as possible.
To make using attributes as easy as possible, we provide a pre-defined set of attributes that can be used to give us basic information about your items. For example, a bulk upload of a list of restaurant reviews can contain pre-defined attributes such as author, name_of_item_reviewed, and rating. These attributes will help people find your content easily through specialized searches. For more details on pre-defined attributes, check out the info on tab-delimited or XML.
If our pre-defined attributes aren't enough, you can create and submit your own custom set. These can include whatever additional details you choose. Just create a custom attribute and add the pertinent information when you upload. There's no limit to the number of custom attributes you can use; all we ask is that your format these custom attributes correctly (using our specifications for tab-delimited or XML.
A couple of final notes: We do plan to support Atom 1.0 in the nearfuture, and are working on an expanded list of pre-defined attributesto make it easier to include all your data without going custom. Fornow, we strongly encourage you to provide as many pre-defined andcustomized attributes in your bulk uploads as you think you need.
