Google Found to Be Testing Classified Ads

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October 26, 2005

By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 25 - An online classified service being tested by Google set off intense speculation on Tuesday 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 percent at points during the day.

The Google Base page was discovered on Monday by Tony Ruscoe, a British programmer, who said he had created an automatic program to search for subdomains accessible at the Google.com Web site. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., took down the test site and replaced the page with a "403" forbidden-access response.

Google released a statement on Tuesday 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 in a statement. "Like our Web crawl and the recently released Google Sitemaps program, 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."

Google executives, who are having a conference for partners and advertisers, called Google Zeitgeist, would not comment.

EBay, the online auction company, based in San Jose, Calif., is currently a major Google advertiser. The potential for direct competition between the Silicon Valley giants has been a subject of speculation for several years.


Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company