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The company says it is part of its continuing efforts to be the searchable repository of all the world's information. However, its biggest effect is likely to be as a competitor to eBay as the world's online classified ads service.

Google Base was leaked on to the web at the end of last month causing a flurry of speculation in the Google watching blogosphere.

Although the principle method of search is via the search engine, Google has added a degree of taxonomy more familiar with directories to enable searchers to drill down through the vast amounts of content that is likely to be stored on the service.

It is remarkably easy to add an item and it is free. The service simply asks you to fill in a form with a title, the price - fixed, base or negotiable, description and a picture. It also allows you to set your contact details and the method of payments accepted. These include cash,

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cheque or credit card. If Google Base takes off as a service, we can doubtless expect some online payment method along the lines of PayPal to come from Google in the future.

To make the item easier to find it also allows you to add keywords or phrases which will make the item easier to find along with 'attributes' which can be anything from an address, a date range or simply a checkbox. A whole new field of Google Base optimisers opens up.

The service is geared towards a fast turnover of items. Each item is stored for a maximum of 31 days presumably to prevent people setting up shop on the service although this might change. There is, for example, a system whereby someone can bulk upload a number of items at once to Google Base, either as a tab delimited file or an XML file in RSS or ATOM format. As well as Google Base such bulk items may appear on Froogle or Google Local.

As yet, the system does not have a rating service whereby previous customers can mark the service given by a particular merchant. However there is a 'bad item' link where customers or visitors can report an item for offences ranging from spam, to mislabelling or linking to adult sites.

Like many Google products, Base has been launched as a beta and lacks much of the polish that more mature products have. However, the developers have covered most of the areas for a comprehensive and thriving classified ads system, although without some kind of trusted payments system, Base might be open to the fraudsters.