GoodRelations is a lightweight ontology for annotating offerings and other aspects of e-commerce on the Web. GoodRelations is the only OWL DL ontology officially supported by both Google and Yahoo.

It provides a standard vocabulary for expressing things like

• that a particular Web site describes an offer to sell cellphones of a certain make and model at a certain price,
• that a pianohouse offers maintenance for pianos that weigh less than 150 kg,
• or that a car rental company leases out cars of a certain make and model from a particular set of branches across the country.

Also, most if not all commercial and functional details of e-commerce scenarios can be expressed, e.g. eligible countries, payment and delivery options, quantity discounts, opening hours, etc.

The GoodRelations ontology is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In a nutshell, you are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work; to remix/adapt the work (e.g. to import the ontology and create specializations of its elements), as long as you attribute the work.

[edit] Project page and resources for developers

• Project Page: http://purl.org/goodrelations/

• Specification: http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1.html

• Cookbook: http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/wiki/GoodRelations#CookBook:_GoodRelations_Recipes_and_Examples
• Primer/Tutorial: http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/primer/

[edit] Overview Materials

• Webcast explaining the Web of Data for E-Commerce: http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/webcast/
• Overview article on Semantic Universe: http://www.semanticuniverse.com/articles-semantic-web-based-e-commerce-webmasters-get-ready.html

[edit] Tools for Generating Data

• Tool for registering your business: http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/tools/grsnippetgen/
• Extensions for Shop Software (Magento, Joomla/Virtuemart, Wordpress/WPEC,...): http://www.ebusiness-unibw.org/wiki/GoodRelations#Shop_Software

[edit] Related Vocabularies / Ontologies

• The Product Ontology, http://www.productontology.org
• Vehicle Sales Ontology (VSO), http://purl.org/vso/ns

• Tickets Ontology (TIO), http://purl.org/tio/ns

[edit] Example

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE rdf:RDF [
    <!ENTITY owl "http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#" >
    <!ENTITY dc "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" >
    <!ENTITY gr "http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#" >
    <!ENTITY xsd "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" >
    <!ENTITY rdfs "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" >
    <!ENTITY rdf "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" >
    <!ENTITY toy "http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/examples/toy#" >
    <!ENTITY protege "http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/owl/protege#" >
]>

<rdf:RDF xmlns="http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/examples/gr#"
     xml:base="http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/examples/gr"
     xmlns:toy="http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/examples/toy#"
     xmlns:gr="http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#"
     xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#"
     xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
     xmlns:protege="http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/owl/protege#"
     xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
     xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
     xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#">
    <owl:Ontology rdf:about="">
        <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://www.heppnetz.de/ontologies/examples/toy"/>
        <owl:imports rdf:resource="http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1"/>
    </owl:Ontology>
    <gr:BusinessEntity rdf:ID="ElectronicsCom">
        <gr:legalName rdf:datatype="&xsd;string"
            >Electronics.com Ltd.</gr:legalName>
        <rdfs:seeAlso/>
        <gr:offers rdf:resource="#Offering_1"/>
    </gr:BusinessEntity>
    <gr:ActualProductOrServiceInstance rdf:ID="mySony100TVSet">
        <rdf:type rdf:resource="&toy;TVSet"/>
        <toy:hasScreenSize rdf:resource="#QuantitativeValueFloat_1"/>
    </gr:ActualProductOrServiceInstance>
    <gr:Offering rdf:ID="Offering_1">
        <gr:hasPriceSpecification rdf:resource="#UnitPriceSpecification_1"/>
        <gr:hasBusinessFunction rdf:resource="&gr;Sell"/>
        <gr:includesObject rdf:resource="#TypeAndQuantityNode_1"/>
    </gr:Offering>
    <gr:QuantitativeValueFloat rdf:ID="QuantitativeValueFloat_1">
        <gr:hasValueFloat rdf:datatype="&xsd;float">30.0</gr:hasValueFloat>
        <gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">CMT</gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement>
    </gr:QuantitativeValueFloat>
    <gr:TypeAndQuantityNode rdf:ID="TypeAndQuantityNode_1">
        <gr:amountOfThisGood rdf:datatype="&xsd;float">1.0</gr:amountOfThisGood>
        <gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement xml:lang="en">C62</gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement>
        <gr:typeOfGood rdf:resource="#mySony100TVSet"/>
    </gr:TypeAndQuantityNode>
    <gr:UnitPriceSpecification rdf:ID="UnitPriceSpecification_1">
        <gr:hasCurrencyValue rdf:datatype="&xsd;float">200.0</gr:hasCurrencyValue>
        <gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">C62</gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement>
        <gr:hasCurrency rdf:datatype="&xsd;string">EUR</gr:hasCurrency>
    </gr:UnitPriceSpecification>
</rdf:RDF>

[edit] Scientific Publications

Hepp, Martin: GoodRelations: An Ontology for Describing Products and Services Offers on the Web , Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW2008), Acitrezza, Italy, September 29 - October 3, 2008, Springer LNCS, Vol 5268, pp. 332-347.