Source: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y09/m09/i29/s04Google is replacing Google Base with Google Merchant Center for retailers and online sellers who upload product feeds to Google for exposure in search and in Google Product Search. Retailers can now use Google Merchant Center to upload product feeds, check on the status of items, and get information on the performance of their listings.
Google Base is still available for other types of structured content, but it no longer offers the Data Quality page, Tax & Shipping settings page, Adwords settings page and Checkout settings page.
Google says its Merchant Center provides an optimized experience specifically for product listings. Merchants should sign in to the Merchant Center using the same Google Account information they did for Google Base where they will find their existing data feeds, items and FTP settings. The new Dashboard page in Google Merchant Center gives sellers a one-page overview of their Product listings, latest feeds and performance graphs.
As with Google Base, merchants may integrate their Google Merchant Center and Google Checkout accounts. There are new Terms of Service for using Google Merchant Center.
Earlier this month, Google said it would retire the Google Base accounts of individual sellers who list on marketplaces in order to eliminate duplicate feeds. Instead, it introduced multi-client accounts for aggregators and marketplaces to manage feeds for multiple sellers under a single account, requiring marketplaces and aggregators to use multi-client accounts beginning December 1, 2009.
-Brandon