How IMFAST.COM came to the creation of OpenProductDB.com
One of our last completed project is the web site IMFAST.COM. Broadly speaking, it is a combination of the blackboard and online shops. In general, the project merits of the special article, but we will discuss another thing. During the site works IMFAST.COM, a range of issues was determined, the existence of which we didn’t even know.
Due to the communication with the shops’ representatives it was found that one of the most often problems among sellers are the absence of the descriptions of the goods which they sell. Yes, it is. It is difficult to believe, but in most cases the sellers don’t have the detailed information about the goods which they sell. As this problem seriously complicated all the work with the shops at our website, we have wasted time and effort to the search for solutions.
And the results have shown that the problem exist and more serious that it seemed in the beginning. Actually, the sellers can’t find the objective information about the goods. Yes, partially, the problem can be solved by addressing to the manufacturer (just to the manufacturer because the manufacturer has the same problems as the seller has). But in actual fact this decision is enough long-term and expensive. There are not such resources which provide such information or these resources cover enough little number of goods and at the best they present the minimal text description.
And what information of goods the modern online shop does need? It is called the “structured data” in a language of specialists. The reference https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data. In a language of the ordinary people it is (summarily) the description of the goods parameters by way of “property = value”. For example, almost every goods has its own properties which are very important for the logistics, such as “weight”, “volume” and “dimensions”. And the goods of the definite type are its own, unique properties for this goods.
For example, for the goods as “smartphone” there are properties as “screen size”, “operating system”, “camera”, etc. Some properties are enough simple, for example, “weight”. Other are more difficult, for example, the description of the smartphone camera.
We have understood the properties. For what do they need, it is also clear. The buyer thanks to these properties may find the goods for his special requirements.
But the advantages from the structured data don’t finish at these properties. For example, when following the special engineering standards for these descriptions, its use may give the serious advantage to the website position of the shop in the search systems. Furthermore, the intelligence systems (such as voice assistants) which are gaining ground and use the structured data to form its own base answers.
Taking into account this fact, our decision about the creation of the database of goods was evident. At that, it must be the structured data using the last standards in this sphere. But it is necessary to decide another question for that these data become public. Namely, on which terms do we need to access to these data.
Say honestly, from the very beginning, we had the temptation to access to these data on a paying basis. But we have weighed the advantages and disadvantages, we have decided that these data must be free, not only for personal but also for commercial use. Therefore, we have chosen for these data the license CC-BY which on the one hand, give maximum rights of use of the data, on the other hand, it demands that during the use the author of these data was indicated (that is, the link at our service).
Thereby, the data will be available at most and the authors of these data (and our service) achieve fame.
And we will give a lot of technologies used for the structured data for technical specialists:
Data format: JSON-LD
Schema of database: Schema.org
Taxonomy: GPC
License of data: CC-BY