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When You Just Can’t Wait: Helping Users Shop Offline

Google Base Blog — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:15:00 +0000

A few days ago, a friend of mine needed to get a protective sleeve for her brand-new laptop. She found an online retailer, but didn't want to damage her laptop while waiting for the sleeve to ship. So she used Google Maps to find the retailer's nearest store location, and got her sleeve the same day. She's not alone - most shopping still occurs in-store, where you can interact with items in person, pick up bulky products, and avoid shipping charges. So to help users find merchants who have store locations, we've launched the "nearby stores" feature in Google Product Search. For retailers that have stores close by, users will be able to get more information on the nearest store locations. They can then call a store to make sure the item they want is in stock and buy that last-minute birthday gift - or that laptop sleeve.

We're going to continue refining this feature in the next few weeks, so check it out and make sure you submit your local store information if you haven't already - the instructions are in this blog post. Additionally, please consider submitting the online only attribute, to let us know which items you only sell online and do not stock in stores.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

When You Just Can’t Wait: Helping Users Shop Offline

Google Base Blog — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Lights, Camera, Action!: YouTube Videos in Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:54:00 +0000

Video product reviews are getting a lot of buzz right now, as shoppers increasingly turn to the web to help them figure out what to buy. We're excited to announce that we are including relevant and high quality YouTube video reviews on a number of our product pages in Google Product Search. Videos include reviews from sources like USA Today, Wired, and Digital Trends, and they appear above the "Similar Items" section of the page. For example, see the product page for this Nikon D90 camera.

We'll be periodically reviewing content for inclusion in this feature. While we can't guarantee that submitted videos will be selected, please do the following if you'd like a video to be considered:

Add the "youtube" attribute to your data feed. In this attribute include the YouTube video ID for each one of your products with a related YouTube video review. Video IDs are the values that follow the 'v=' in the YouTube URL of the video.
Include UPC, ISBN, brand, and MPN information in the tag of your YouTube video review.

So grab some popcorn and pull up a comfy chair - it's time to go shopping!

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Lights, Camera, Action!: YouTube Videos in Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:54:00 +0000

We'll be periodically reviewing content for inclusion in this feature. While we can't guarantee that submitted videos will be selected, please do the following if you'd like a video to be considered:

Add the "youtube" attribute to your data feed. In this attribute include the YouTube video ID for each one of your products with a related YouTube video review. Video IDs are the values that follow the 'v=' in the YouTube URL of the video.
Include UPC, ISBN, brand, and MPN information in the tag of your YouTube video review.

So grab some popcorn and pull up a comfy chair - it's time to go shopping!

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

New Policies for Marketplaces & Aggregators on Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:58:00 +0000

Today we're happy to introduce multi-client accounts as a solution to help aggregators and marketplaces manage feeds for multiple sellers under a single account. By allowing marketplaces better control over their sellers' product data, shoppers get more accurate and relevant information when they search for things to buy on Product Search, and individual sellers don't need to submit their own feeds. The multi-client accounts allow aggregators and marketplaces to consolidate and manage data feeds and reporting for sub-accounts, submit changes more rapidly, and get more accurate Google Checkout badging at the seller level. Marketplaces and aggregators will be required to use multi-client accounts to submit and manage their sellers' feeds starting on December 1st, 2009.

As a result of these changes, individual sellers on marketplaces no longer need to submit a feed to Google Product Search. To avoid duplicate listings we will be notifying individual sellers and retiring their accounts. Please see the full Marketplace and Aggregator policies for more information.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

New Policies for Marketplaces & Aggregators on Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:58:00 +0000

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Linking Your Checkout and Base Accounts

Google Base Blog — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:59:00 +0000

As we announced on July 30th, we're retiring the "One at a time" upload option on Google Base today. If you've been using the "One at a time" upload option, we recommend submitting through a data feed, which allows you to submit single or multiple items quickly and easily. For those providers who want Google to host a page for their item - for example, if you don't have a website - just submit your data feed without anything in the "link" attribute, and we'll create a Google Base page for your item.

For those users who are interested in selling items hosted on Google pages, we're making it easier to link your Google Base account to Google Checkout, our payment processing solution. When you sign in today, you'll notice a new page in your "Settings" tab called "Checkout." If there's a Checkout account linked to your Base account already, you'll see it listed on this page. If you're not already linked to a Checkout account, or want to add a different account, you'll be able to do that by entering the Checkout Merchant ID. Any Checkout accounts added in this manner will need to be verified in Google Checkout, so your payments information is secure. We hope you find this expanded functionality useful.

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

Linking Your Checkout and Base Accounts

Google Base Blog — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:59:00 +0000

Request for High Quality Images and New "Online Only" Attribute

Google Base Blog — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:15:00 +0000

When you're considering purchasing an item online, it's helpful to know what that product looks like, with as much visual detail as possible. Images that are very small, like thumbnail pictures, don't help customers as much as larger images that show more product detail. While a small image is better than no image at all, we'd like to ask that when submitting a product feed, you include links to the largest images you have. (We prefer images that are at least 300x300 pixels, but please don't re-size the image to be larger - just send us the highest-quality original you have.)

Additionally, as we begin to experiment with showing local store locations in Product Search, we want to make sure we're using the most accurate information. For that reason, we've added a new optional attribute to our Feed Specification. The new "online only" attribute is used to indicate items that are only available for purchase online, and not available for purchase in-store or for in-store pickup. For more details on formatting the "online only" attribute, please see the Feed Specification. If you have local store locations and are not yet submitting those to Google Product Search, please follow the directions in this blog post.

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

Request for High Quality Images and New "Online Only" Attribute

Google Base Blog — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

Shipping Costs in Product Search for Germany

Google Base Blog — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Shopping online lets you find great deals, but it's important to know the full cost of what you're planning to buy. That's why we're happy to announce that we've started displaying shipping costs in Google Product Search results for Germany. So that users get the most accurate price information, we strongly encourage you to start including shipping data for all your products submitted for Germany if you haven't done so already. Please make sure that both your item price and shipping price are VAT inclusive, and ensure that your display name conforms to our editorial guidelines by removing any tax and shipping information.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Shipping Costs in Product Search for Germany

Google Base Blog — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Shipping Attribute now available for Germany

Google Base Blog — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:31:00 +0000

In response to the July 16th German Supreme Court ruling concerning shipping costs in comparison shopping engines, and to provide consumer with more accurate price information, we're pleased to announce that we've launched the "shipping" attribute in Germany. The "shipping" attribute allows you to specify shipping values for your items on Google Product Search. For more details on formatting the "shipping" attribute, please visit this German Help Center article.

We'll provide an update on this blog once we begin displaying shipping information in Google Product Search results. In the meantime, we strongly encourage all merchants submitting items for Germany to include shipping information in the new "shipping" attribute as soon as possible. Please make sure to include VAT, both in the item price and the shipping price.

Posted by Andrea Gotschin, Google Base Support

Shipping Attribute now available for Germany

Google Base Blog — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:31:00 +0000

Retiring the "One at a time" Feature

Google Base Blog — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be making some changes to Base in order to better serve you, our users. We're announcing these changes early so you can get a head start in adjusting your upload processes if necessary.

We've found that our "One at a time" upload option isn't heavily used - most providers submit multiple items at a time, using our data feed or API upload options. As a result, we're planning on retiring this single item upload functionality in Base in a few weeks. But don't worry - if you'd like to continue to submit items to Google Base, it's easy to use our data feed option.

To keep our listings fresh, items older than May 1st, 2009 with no expiration date or an expiration date far in the future will soon expire. Additionally, draft items and items uploaded through the "One at a time" option will be deleted after expiration. Once you've switched over to uploading items through a data feed, we encourage you to submit as often as necessary to keep the information in your listings accurate.

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

Retiring the "One at a time" Feature

Google Base Blog — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:49:00 +0000

German Supreme Court Decision and Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:03:00 +0000

As you may know, on July 16th the German Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit concerning shipping costs in comparison shopping results. We're aware of this decision, and are working hard on a solution for our German merchants. We will report back as we make progress.

Thank you for your patience.

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

German Supreme Court Decision and Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:03:00 +0000

Video: Product Search for Webmasters

Google Base Blog — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:05:00 +0000

As a member of the Google Developer team, I filmed a video about Google Product Search for our webmaster community. In it, I discuss the benefits of Product Search, suggest best practices when submitting a feed, and answer frequently asked questions such as:

Do listings expire after 30 days?
How often should I submit a feed?
How are different sites sorted in search results when there are multiple results for the same product?
Why doesn't Google badge PayPal accepting merchants as well as Checkout?
Does it help search rankings to add custom attributes to my product feeds?

Posted by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Video: Product Search for Webmasters

Google Base Blog — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:05:00 +0000

Do listings expire after 30 days?
How often should I submit a feed?
How are different sites sorted in search results when there are multiple results for the same product?
Why doesn't Google badge PayPal accepting merchants as well as Checkout?
Does it help search rankings to add custom attributes to my product feeds?

Posted by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Reminder: Submit Your Store Locations

Google Base Blog — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:50:00 +0000

We posted a few weeks ago about an experiment we're working on to display store locations to consumers on Google Product Search. If you have local stores and haven't already submitted your information to the Local Business Center, there's still time! As a reminder, here are the instructions:

First, go to www.google.com/lbc. Then:

If you're able to verify ownership of your store locations by receiving a phone call or a postcard at each location, please add and verify your stores individually by using the "Add new business" option.

If you have 10 or more stores, or if you're unable to individually verify all of your locations, you can bulk upload your listings as unverified data by choosing the "Upload a data file" option. Then, fill out this form to help us associate your Local Business Center data with your Google Base account.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Reminder: Submit Your Store Locations

Google Base Blog — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:50:00 +0000

First, go to www.google.com/lbc. Then:

If you're able to verify ownership of your store locations by receiving a phone call or a postcard at each location, please add and verify your stores individually by using the "Add new business" option.

If you have 10 or more stores, or if you're unable to individually verify all of your locations, you can bulk upload your listings as unverified data by choosing the "Upload a data file" option. Then, fill out this form to help us associate your Local Business Center data with your Google Base account.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

New Data Feed Interface Improvements

Google Base Blog — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Last week, several members of the Google Product Search team went to the Internet Retailer Conference & Expo in Boston, where we had a chance to meet with some of our content providers. We got some great feedback about Product Search and Google Base at the conference, from success stories to feature requests. This sort of user feedback is a crucial part of the development process at Google - it directly impacts focus areas for our engineers and product teams. For example, a top request from our merchants has been for more information about their data feeds, and I'm happy to announce that as a result of that feedback we've launched a new data feed interface in all Google Base accounts.

You can see this new interface in the "Data feeds" section of the "My Items" tab. First, you'll notice that we now show the number of inserted items for the feeds you've submitted in the "Last upload data & status" column. Also in that column, you'll see a link called "View errors and suggestions." This link takes you to a page which details feed-level and item-level errors and warnings, so you can more easily take action to get all your items submitted, with all relevant attributes. If you haven't seen these new features yet, sign in to your Google Base account and check them out today.

Posted by Chris Azalde, Google Base Support

New Data Feed Interface Improvements

Google Base Blog — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:42:00 +0000

Posted by Chris Azalde, Google Base Support

Local Business Information and Store Locations

Google Base Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:09:00 +0000

Usually, I do my shopping online - I can browse from the comfort of my home or office and compare across multiple stores before I purchase. Occasionally, however, when I'm heading out on a trip or I have to buy a last-minute birthday present, I don't have time to wait for a product to ship. To help users with this problem, we've begun experimenting with exposing store locations in Google Product Search, and we'd like to invite you to participate. We think this will help users find nearby store locations, and help merchants get foot traffic into their stores.

To participate in this experiment, all you need to do is submit your store locations to the Google Local Business Center, which allows business owners to control the content of their business listings as they appear in Google Search and Google Maps.

Submitting your store locations to the Google Local Business Center is easy. First, go to www.google.com/lbc. Then:

If you're able to verify ownership of your store locations by receiving a phone call or a postcard at each location, please add and verify your stores individually by using the "Add new business" option.

If you have 10 or more stores, or if you're unable to individually verify all of your locations, you can bulk upload your listings as unverified data by choosing the "Upload a data file" option. Then, fill out this form to help us associate your Local Business Center data with your Google Base account.

Regardless of which method you use to submit your data, use the same email address you use to log in to Google Product Search.

As a bonus, the Google Local Business Center just released the Local Business Center dashboard, a completely free feature that allows business owners to view a range of information about how Google users find their business listings on Google - from the number of clicks your listing received to the zip codes from which users are driving when they request directions to your store. Currently, this dashboard is only available to business owners who can verify each store location via phone or postcard.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Local Business Information and Store Locations

Google Base Blog — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:09:00 +0000

Submitting your store locations to the Google Local Business Center is easy. First, go to www.google.com/lbc. Then:

If you're able to verify ownership of your store locations by receiving a phone call or a postcard at each location, please add and verify your stores individually by using the "Add new business" option.

If you have 10 or more stores, or if you're unable to individually verify all of your locations, you can bulk upload your listings as unverified data by choosing the "Upload a data file" option. Then, fill out this form to help us associate your Local Business Center data with your Google Base account.

Regardless of which method you use to submit your data, use the same email address you use to log in to Google Product Search.

Posted by Paul Lee, Business Product Manager, Google Product Search

Condition Attribute Becoming Required for Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:30:00 +0000

We'd like to let you know about an important change we're making to the Product Search data feed requirements. As you know, you can help shoppers find your products by including high quality, frequently updated product information in the form of attributes. In order to provide shoppers with the most useful information, we'll be making the "condition" attribute required starting on June 30th, 2009, in all locations.

In order to keep your feeds active past this date, please remember to include the "condition" attribute for all of your items if you're not already doing so. Please include one of three values to describe your product: new, used, or refurbished.

For more information, please visit the following help center article:

English - United States

English - United Kingdom

Deutsch - Deutschland

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

Condition Attribute Becoming Required for Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:30:00 +0000

For more information, please visit the following help center article:

English - United States

English - United Kingdom

Deutsch - Deutschland

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

New Base Terms of Service

Google Base Blog — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Today, we're making some changes to the Google Base Terms of Service. We've also added a section to the Settings tab called "Business Information," which will enable you to associate more information about your business with your listings in Google Base. You will be prompted to accept the new Terms of Service and add your business information the next time you log in to Google Base.

To ensure that we are able to continue processing your feeds and placing your listings on Google properties, please log in to your account and accept the new Terms of Service by June 26, 2009. If you use the API and do not accept the new Terms of Service after logging in to your Base account by June 26th, your API applications may not function properly.

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

New Base Terms of Service

Google Base Blog — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

Help mobile users find your offers

Google Base Blog — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:01:00 +0000

We're excited to announce that Google Product Search for Mobile recently launched barcode scanning on Android devices. In order for your product offer to be listed when a user searches using their barcode scanner, you need to include a unique product identifier attribute like a Universal Product Code (UPC) or European Article Number (EAN) in your data feed. For more information on unique product identifier attributes, please see this article in the Google Base Help Center.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Help mobile users find your offers

Google Base Blog — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Introducing Google Product Search for mobile

Google Base Blog — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Today, we launched Google Product Search for mobile for iPhone and Android-powered devices. When mobile users search for products on the go they can get quick access to product information -- like online product ratings, reviews, prices, and more -- formatted neatly for their phones.

If you've already submitted items to Google Product Search, you don't have to do anything extra to get your product information to show up on Google Product Search for mobile. If your items are not yet listed in Product Search, it's easy: just submit your product information using this guide and keep submitting frequently to keep your listings up to date.

This is also a good opportunity for you to create mobile versions of your landing pages. Although the iPhone and Android browsers can render many web pages as they are, you may want to consider optimizing your landing pages for mobile browsers to improve the user experience.

Here's a video of my colleague demonstrating Google Product Search for mobile at our company store.

Posted by Eiji Hirai, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

Introducing Google Product Search for mobile

Google Base Blog — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Here's a video of my colleague demonstrating Google Product Search for mobile at our company store.

Posted by Eiji Hirai, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

Data Quality tab now available for merchants in the UK and Germany

Google Base Blog — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:38:00 +0000

Since we launched the Data Quality tab in Google Base accounts a few months ago, merchants in the US have been able to get customized suggestions for improving the quality of their data submissions. Today, we're excited to announce that the Data Quality tab is now available to all merchants in Germany and the UK.

On the Data Quality tab, you can find a number of recommendations that will help you with submitting higher quality data to Google Product Search. This means submitting accurate, up-to-date product information in the form of attributes, as well as abiding by best practices for formatting these attributes. For example, you can find recommendations on the length of your titles and descriptions, or get a snapshot of the number of items in your account that are missing key attributes like EAN, UPC, and ISBN. By including attributes like EAN, UPC, and ISBN, you're providing more information to help us include your products on Google Product Search product pages, which shoppers utilize to determine which merchant to buy from when multiple stores are selling the same product. Addressing the issues listed on your Data Quality tab will go a long way in improving the quality of your product data and help more shoppers find your products.

We hope that you'll find these recommendations helpful, and that they will help you make the most of the spring selling season.

Posted by: Dom Widdows, Software Engineer, and Travis Keep, Software Engineer

New Google Base Help Forum

Google Base Blog — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:33:00 +0000

Greetings and Happy New Year to all of our Google Base users! As you may know, we've recently launched the new Google Base Help Forum. While our previous group served as a resource for you to ask questions, find answers, and share your expertise with other users, it's our hope that the new forum will help you do all of that and much, much more.

We've developed many new and exciting features which we think will make it easier and quicker for you to find the answers that you're looking for (and maybe even have some fun while doing it.) Some of the things you're able to do in this new system include:

give special recognition to helpful forum members (they''ll be marked as "Top Contributors")
mark questions as "answered"
enhance your user profile; even upload a photo which will appear next to your name.

If you'd like to learn more about Google's new Help Forums or watch an instructional video, please visit the Official Google Blog.

As a new year of shopping gets under way, we hope you'll come by and check out the new and improved Google Base Help Forum. Happy posting!

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

Tax and shipping estimates on Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:27:00 +0000

Knowing the full price of a product, including tax and shipping costs, is extremely important to buyers when making purchase decisions. To provide our users with this information, we recently started including tax and shipping estimates on Google Product Search results in the U.S. You will now be able to see tax and shipping costs displayed alongside the product listings for which merchants have submitted this information. As the holiday shopping season progresses, we strongly encourage you to start submitting tax & shipping data for all your products if you haven't done so already. It's a great way to maximize the visibility of your products during this critical shopping period. Here's more information on how to do so.

Posted by Yi Wei, User Experience Designer, and Kyle Consalus, Software Engineer

Some of the season’s top searches on Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:31:00 +0000

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Now that it's Cyber Monday and online shopping is in full swing, we've put together some of the top searches on Google Product Search to help shoppers find popular gifts for their family and friends. We pored over millions of recent queries to find some of the most searched for products this holiday.

Here are some of the top searches we found:
1. nintendo wii
2. wii fit
3. ipod touch
4. xbox 360
5. nintendo ds
6. ipod nano
7. uggs
8. nikon d90
9. zune
10. digital picture frame

We also took a look at the top searches in a few other categories, such as Video Games & Toys and Cold Weather apparel. Here are some of the top searches in the Cold Weather apparel category:
1. pea coat
2. north face jacket
3. sweater dress
4. sweater boots
5. leather jacket
6. christmas sweater
7. ugly christmas sweater
8. houndstooth coat
9. burton jacket
10. dog sweater

Explore a full list of these popular searches on the Google Holiday Shopping page. We hope that these lists will help shoppers put together their gift lists and find their favorite products on Google Product Search, as well as connect them to the merchants who are selling these items. Happy Cyber Monday, and happy shopping!

To read more about how Google is celebrating the holidays with shoppers, take a look at the Official Google Blog.

Posted by Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager

Top 5 holiday tips for Google Product Search merchants

Google Base Blog — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:57:00 +0000

The year-end holidays are the biggest shopping season, and we know that many of you have been busy with your site preparations for months. To help, here are some tips on how to get the most out of your Google Product Search feeds this holiday. They can help you improve the quality of your data feeds, prioritize the types of data to send us, and help more shoppers find your products.

Submit tax and shipping data for your items: We'll soon be displaying tax and shipping information on Google Product Search to provide buyers with more accurate price information. Buyers use tax and shipping estimates to help them determine what to buy and which merchant to buy it from, so we strongly encourage all merchants to submit this data. Here's more information on how to do so.

Include unique product identifiers: In addition to using our five required attributes, be sure to include the recommended attributes relevant to your products, such as product identifiers like MPN, UPC, or ISBN. By including these, you're giving us more information to help us include your products on Google Product Search product pages (our merchant comparison pages) when multiple merchants are selling the same product.

Use effective titles: There's nothing like an accurate title to tell shoppers at a glance exactly what you're selling, so be sure to use detailed and descriptive titles for your products. Do keep in mind that Product Search truncates titles to under 70 characters, so avoid exceedingly lengthy titles.

Write accurate descriptions: Descriptions offer an overview of the product you're selling, so make sure that your descriptions are accurate and more than a few words in length. But if your descriptions are over 150 characters, you may want to shorten them to only include the most crucial information, as Product Search truncates longer descriptions.

Submit your feeds frequently: Lastly, remember to submit your data feeds regularly -- up to once a day -- to ensure that your product information is current for shoppers.

We hope that these tips will help you make the most of the holiday shopping season. For more holiday tips relating to other Google products that online retailers use (such as Google AdWords), please visit this page.

Posted by: Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager

Get customized suggestions for improving your product listings

Google Base Blog — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:19:00 +0000

We've always emphasized the importance of submitting high-quality product feeds to Google Product Search. This means submitting accurate, up-to-date product information in the form of attributes, as well as abiding by best practices for formatting these attributes. Doing so goes a long way toward helping shoppers find your items more easily.

Today, we're pleased to announce the addition of a new "Data Quality" tab in your Google Base account. On this tab, you'll find a host of suggestions for improving the quality of the item listings in your product feed. For example, you can find recommendations on the length of your title and description fields, or get a snapshot of the number of items in your feed that are missing key attributes. By addressing these issues, you'll be able to improve the quality of your feeds and help more shoppers find your products.

We hope you're as excited about this new tab as we are, and that you'll find the recommendations helpful.

Posted by: Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager

New taxonomy to describe the product type of your items

Google Base Blog — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:47:00 +0000

We've received some feedback from Google Product Search merchants asking for more direction on which values to include for the product_type attribute. We listened to your feedback, and today we're unveiling our new categorization system that you can use for describing the product type of your items. Product_type is an optional attribute that you can use to indicate the category (or categories) of the product being sold. We recommend that you use the category paths and values from our new product taxonomy.

The Google product taxonomy is a tree of categories that describe product families, with verticals (Electronics, Home & Garden, etc.) at the highest level, followed by more specific product families or products within these broad categories (such as Electronics > Audio > Audio Players & Recorders > MP3 Players).

If you already have a system of categorization of your own, you may also use that. Just include the full category path as the value for the product_type attribute (e.g., Books > Non-Fiction > Sports > Baseball).

We hope that this new taxonomy provides you with more suggestions on how to accurately describe your items, so that you can help even more shoppers find your products! For more information on our taxonomy and instructions on how to format the product_type attribute, please read this Help Center article.

Posted by: Weiying Li, Google Base Support

Introducing tax and shipping

Google Base Blog — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Tax and shipping estimation is one of the features most commonly asked for by shoppers on Google Product Search. Today, I’m happy to announce that you can now submit tax and shipping information for your products via your Google Base account. We'll soon be displaying this information on Google Product Search to provide buyers with more accurate price information, so we strongly encourage all merchants to start submitting it.

You'll be able to submit your tax and shipping data in two ways. You can:

1. Set default values directly in your Google Base account. The rates and values you set will serve as the default values for all your items. You can input these values on the new "Tax and Shipping settings" tab under “Settings” in your account.

2. Include values for the new tax and shipping attributes in your data feeds. These values will override any account-level default values that you have set for that item.

Please visit our Help Center article for step-by-step instructions and more information on formatting the new tax and shipping attributes.

Posted by: Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager

Google Base account now international

Google Base Blog — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:11:00 +0000

Posted by Gilbert Dietrich, German Google Base Team

Many of you have been asking for a way to easily upload and publish items for different countries to Google Base from the comfort of your account. We listened to your feedback and have created an international dashboard within your Google Base account, which lets you select different target countries for your feeds. This means that you no longer need to log in to three separate domains (.com .co.uk, and .de) to submit feeds to each country. Now you can simply log in to your usual account and have access to all your feeds, regardless of the country for which they were registered.

For example, if you select "US" as your target country from the drop-down menu instead of "All", only your US feeds will be displayed in your account. Within your Account Settings you can also choose a dashboard display language of your choice, independent of the country to which you are submitting your feeds.

Additionally, you can easily register your feeds for the various countries using one account. During the registration process, if you want to specify a location different than your default target country, you will be able to choose your desired target country for that particular feed.

Please visit our Help Center for more information on this topic. As always, we welcome any suggestions for ways we can make it even easier for you to upload and publish your items to Google Base.

Schedule your data feeds

Google Base Blog — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:39:00 +0000

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager

To keep your items in Base current, you should send us a new data feed as often as your item information changes. The great news is that you don't have to send us your file manually anymore. Now Google Base can download your data feed from your website. Here's how to get started:

Make sure your updated data feed is available on a fixed, externally accessible URL on your website.
Define the schedule that Google Base should follow to retrieve the bulk upload file from that URL.

Google Base will retrieve and process your data feed according to the schedule you define. You can set daily, weekly or monthly schedules and specify the exact time your file should be retrieved. Just make sure that your bulk upload URL belongs to the website you registered in your Account Settings. Within your Account Settings you can also choose whether you want to receive email notifications when Base retrieves and processes your data feed. You can find all the details and step-by-step instructions about setting your schedule in our Help Center article.

Publishing priority for Base API items

Google Base Blog — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:47:00 +0000

Posted by Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager

The Google Base data API is used to manage and publish all kinds of data. Some of this data is particularly time-sensitive, like news or events that will expire in a matter of hours. Other data has more value over the long term, such as recipes that are intended to be used and shared indefinitely.

To streamline the publishing process and make sure that time-sensitive items appear in the snippets feed as quickly as possible, Google Base now differentiates between high- and low-priority items. High-priority items are published immediately. Low-priority items are published to the snippets feed within a day, and are still instantly available on the items feed.

For now, the default priority is "high." On May 8, we'll set the default priority to "low" and set quotas for high-priority items to ensure fairness. We'll provide more information about quotas in an upcoming blog post, so keep your eyes peeled.

For detailed information about how the new priorities work, refer to the documentation. As always, if you have questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for your participation in Google Base.

New API Features

Google Base Blog — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:53:00 +0000

By Alex Dovlecel, Google Base API Engineering Team

If you've been wondering what the Google Base API team has been working on lately, wonder no more. We are happy to tell you that a couple of new features were released in the last couple of weeks.

Location queries
We think locations are extremely useful for building a large variety of applications. Mashups of Google Maps spring to mind. They look cool and are easy to develop. That's why we devoted some of our time to improving location queries.Now you can:

Query addresses: The radius (or lack thereof) in a location query will help you tune your results. If a radius is not provided, Google Base will match the items that are located in the specified area (zip code, city, state, country). If you include a radius, then Google Base will return the items located at a distance less than the radius from the center of the specified area. Sounds complicated? It's not. Let's take a couple of examples:
[location:@"Mountain View, CA"] will match items located in the city of Mountain View, California. It doesn't matter if they are close or far from the center of the town.
[location:@"Mountain View, CA" + 1mi] will match items located within one mile of Mountain View's geographic center.
[location:@"Washington"] will match items located in Washington. You can do the same for countries by replacing Washington with a country name like Switzerland, or France. By providing a ZIP code in the address string, like in this query: [location:@"93430, CA"] the API will make sure to return only items that are located in the given zip code (Mountain View, California).

Query rectangular areas: For certain types of applications (like Google Maps mashups), querying for a rectangular lat/long boundary is important. Now you can easily do this by using the following syntax: [location: @+12.9+12.20..@+14.5+12.45].

For more information about location queries, refer to the developer's guide.

Reference attributes
We know items are not always isolated entities. Sometimes it makes sense to have one item point to another. Of course, you can build a relation between two items by using attributes of type "url", but that can be cumbersome. To address this case, we introduced a new "reference" attribute type. Now you can insert an item containing attributes that reference another Google Base item by passing the ID of the referenced item. For example the attribute
<g:my_ref_attribute type='reference'>17891817243016304554> refers to the item that can be accessed at http://www.google.com/base/feeds/snippets/17891817243016304554
You can also query for items that reference another item. The query [my ref attribute(reference): 17891817243016304554] will return all the items that have a reference attribute named "my ref attribute" which points to the item identified by http://www.google.com/base/feeds/snippets/17891817243016304554.

Make no mistake - Google Base is definitely not a relational database. You can't do join operations in queries. Google Base does not enforce referential integrity for your items. References can help you interconnect your data, so that you or anyone else who finds your data can more easily navigate from one item to the next.
For more information about reference attributes, refer to the developer's guide.

Images and thumbnails
If you want to embed images for items in Google Base in your website, we have good news for you. Images are now stored at base.googlehosted.com, and you can link to them directly. The Base API also supports a new value for the content query parameter called thumbnails. If you include the thumbnails argument, all of your g:image_link attributes will include links to the related thumbnails.

For example, querying reviews for "Golden Compass":
http://www.google.com/base/feeds/snippets/-/reviews?bq=golden+compass&content=thumbnails

... will return, among the others, the item:
http://www.google.com/base/feeds/snippets/11204632290451546619

...which contains links to thumbnails:

<g:image_link type='url'>http://i.walmart.com/i/p/09/78/06/79/87/0978067987924_100X100.jpg
  <gm:thumbnail width='60' height='60'>
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=http%3A%2F%2Fi.walmart.com%2Fi%2Fp%2F09%2F78%2F06%2F79%2F87%2F0978067987924_100X100.jpg&dhm=ffffffff80c81128&size=5
  gm:thumbnail>
  <gm:thumbnail width='90' height='90'>
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=http%3A%2F%2Fi.walmart.com%2Fi%2Fp%2F09%2F78%2F06%2F79%2F87%2F0978067987924_100X100.jpg&dhm=ffffffff80c81128&size=2
  gm:thumbnail>
  <gm:thumbnail width='120' height='120'>
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=http%3A%2F%2Fi.walmart.com%2Fi%2Fp%2F09%2F78%2F06%2F79%2F87%2F0978067987924_100X100.jpg&dhm=ffffffff80c81128&size=3
  gm:thumbnail>
  <gm:thumbnail width='220' height='220'>
http://base.googlehosted.com/base_media?q=http%3A%2F%2Fi.walmart.com%2Fi%2Fp%2F09%2F78%2F06%2F79%2F87%2F0978067987924_100X100.jpg&dhm=ffffffff80c81128&size=4
  gm:thumbnail>
g:image_link>

For more information about using images in your application, refer to the developer's guide.

We hope these new features will spark some ideas for applications to build on top of Google Base. The more you use the API, the more we'll give back. Stay tuned to find out about more new features coming soon.

Feed status notifications

Google Base Blog — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:41:00 +0000

By: Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager

You may not be aware of the steps your uploaded data goes through on Google Base. Here's a snapshot. First, you upload your file; next, Google processes your feed; and third, after processing is complete, users will be able to see your data in their search results.

And starting today, you have the option of receiving a notification email after we've completed the processing (the second step), which will summarize the results. To turn this on, go to Settings. You can choose whether you want to be notified in one of three instances: always, only if there's an error, or never. Learn more about status notifications.

Bulk what?

Google Base Blog — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:02:00 +0000

By: Chris Azalde, Google Base Support

We've been listening to your feedback, and we recognize that our terminology 'bulk uploads' isn't necessarily jiving with the way that you refer to your large content submissions. In light of that, we've recently renamed our multiple item submission method to 'data feeds' because, well, we just want to speak the same language as our trusted content providers.

This is only a terminology change, so just know that when we refer to your 'data feeds' or 'feeds,' it's what we used to refer to as 'bulk uploads' or 'uploads.'

Thanks for your participation in Google Base, and please keep that feedback coming.

Model_number: back and better than ever

Google Base Blog — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 20:17:00 +0000

By: Chad Hancock, Google Base Support

One of my responsibilities on the Google Base team is to help determine which attributes to create for which verticals. In light of that, I'm pleased to announce the triumphant return of one of my favorite attributes: model_number. Back by popular demand, a model number is a unique number or ID code assigned to a product by the manufacturer. This code is sometimes equivalent to MPN (Manufacturer's Part Number), but in cases where it's not, you can include both attributes to give us even more data about your items. This attribute is a great way to provide more information about your items, which in turn will help users find them.

Oh, and while you're at it, don't forget about some of our other great attributes. MPN and UPC (Universal Product Code) are essential for describing most products, especially electronics. If you're sending us books, ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is key. And the brand attribute is great for, well, anything that has a brand. These attributes in particular are really important for connecting your products with the people who want to buy them.

A new bulk upload dashboard

Google Base Blog — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:08:00 +0000

By: Dimitris Meretakis, Product Manager

Be it products, housing, jobs or vehicles, we want to make it easy for you to upload and manage your content in Base. A number of useful features are underway, starting with today's release of a new dashboard for bulk uploads. The new dashboard provides a better overview of the status of your bulk uploads and your items.

New dashboard:

Old dashboard:

We'll keep you posted as new features develop. And as always, we look forward to your feedback and welcome your suggestions. Many of our best ideas come from you!

How do I love thee (Google Product Search Partner Program)?

Google Base Blog — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:48:00 +0000

By: Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager

Today, I'm thrilled to announce the launch of the Google Product Search Partner Program. The idea behind partnering with data feed providers is to give merchants like you an additional resource to support you in uploading your products. Our partners can help you in many ways when it comes to getting your products onto Product Search, including submitting your feeds with all required attributes, uploading catalogs daily, and supporting you with a dedicated technical team. This program is also great because we'll be able to give people who are searching more relevant results by ensuring quality feeds. In fact, the occasion has inspired me to write a little ode, based on the sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Please enjoy!

How do I love thee, Google Product Search Partner Program? Let me count the ways.
I love thee for expert feeds to the depth and breadth
My products may need, if ever out of sight
For the grace of ease and ideal data management
I love thee to the healthy levels of
Qualified traffic, whether by impression or click-through.
I love thee conveniently, as your dedication allows;
I love thee smartly, as up-to-date products achieve.
I love thee with all catalogs put to use
In my once solitude and memories of overtime.
I love thee with a confidence I seemed to lose
With my misplaced spreadsheets and feeds, - I love thee with trust,
Daily Updates, Attributes, for all my items! - and, what’s more,
I shall but love thee better by visiting here.

File registration and uploading temporarily unavailable

Google Base Blog — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:36:00 +0000

By: Jessica Behling, Google Base Support

We're currently conducting scheduled maintenance on the Google Base site and expect maintenance to continue through Wednesday, July 18th. During this time, you'll be unable to register a new bulk upload file or upload your file to Google Base either through your account's dashboard or by using FTP. Of course, this will not affect your existing items or listings in any way. We're working to complete this maintenance as quickly as possible, and we'll let you know on the Google Base Help Discussion Group as soon as file registration and uploading are available again.

New attribute requirements: MPN, UPC and ISBN

Google Base Blog — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:14:00 +0000

By: Chris Azalde, Google Base Support

We recently added UPC, MPN and ISBN to the list of required attributes for bulk uploads of the Products item type. Providing this information will help us rank items better and allow us to deliver more relevant results to our users. Starting today, we're asking everyone submitting items to Google Base US whose items are in the category of products and use these unique identifiers to begin including them for their items. As we will be using this information to categorize your items, please take particular care in the values you provide for these attributes. Only universally-recognized values should be included for these three attributes. Not including accurate values for these fields can have a negative effect on the ranking of your items. Finally, these new attribute requirements are currently only for items submitted to Google Base US.

For more information about these unique identifiers, please select the specific attribute below:

MPN or Manufacturer Part Number, is the unique part number or code for an item determined by the manufacturer for that product.

UPC or Universal Product Code, is a unique numerical identifier for commercial products, usually associated with a bar-code printed on retail merchandise.

ISBN or International Standard Book Number, is a unique numerical identifier for all commercial books. You can find your book's ISBN on the back of the book along with a bar-code.

If you have any questions about this change, feel free to discuss it at this Google Groups thread. You might also find the answer you're looking for on our FAQ.

Get more from your Base listings by using Google Checkout

Google Base Blog — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:05:00 +0000

By Stephen Salinas, Google Base Support

As a Base user, you're probably well aware of the increase in traffic that Base listings can deliver to your online business. Now you can convert more of that traffic into sales with Google Checkout, a fast and convenient checkout process that allows customers to buy from you quickly and easily with a single username and password.

If you currently list individual products on Base-hosted pages, you can now place a Google Checkout "buy" button on each of your listings. Customers who use Checkout can buy from you quickly and securely – and you'll be able to use Checkout to process their orders and charge their credit or debit cards. Learn how to add Google Checkout to your Base listings.

Checkout can also be integrated into your own website alongside your existing process. Google Base merchants that accept Google Checkout on their sites get their product listings and AdWords ads badged with the Google Checkout logo in Google search results, which sets them apart from competitors and lets customers know that buying from those sites will be quick and easy. And until 2008, Checkout merchants pay no transaction processing fees. Learn how to offer Google Checkout on your site.

For more information about using Google Checkout with Google Base, visit the Help Discussion Group for tips from other Google Base users.

How to quickly get answers to your questions

Google Base Blog — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:17:00 +0000

By: Jassim Latif, Google Base Support

Here on the Google Base support team, we're always trying to find new ways to provide you with fast and efficient answers. Here are a couple of suggestions to quickly connect you with the information you're looking for:

Use the Search Box
If you know what you're looking for, use the Search box on the top, right-hand side of the page to search the entire Google Base Help Center.

Visit the Help Discussion Group
Every time you look for an answer using the search box, links to relevant results in the Help Discussion Group will appear at the bottom of the page. Learn from and talk with other people who use Google Base.

In addition to connecting you with answers, we're continually adding new content to make it easier for you to quickly find what you need. If a Help Center article doesn't answer your question, let us know by voting "yes" or "no" under the "Was this information helpful?" section at the bottom of every Help Center article. We'll use your feedback to improve our Help Center content.

Spotlight on a Support Team Member: Marc Scaletta

Google Base Blog — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:31:00 +0000

By Marc Scaletta, Google Base Support

Heya, I'm Marc, and I've been working on the Google Base team since February 2006. Up until a couple years ago, I spent the majority of my life in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Then my wanderlust finally overcame my rational side and I moved to the Bay Area. When I got here, I heard great tales of the Google culture (and food!) and decided that it seemed like the perfect place for me. Given my background in e-commerce, the Base team seemed a natural fit, and here I am.

My job includes answering questions when you write in, and also looking over your bulk uploads to make sure everything is going smoothly. In college, I studied computer science, so I deal with some of the more technical aspects of Google Base as well. For instance, I created the ColdFusion Example for the Google Base data API -- a mashup application that uses both Google Base and Google Calendar.

Looking for some advice? Dry brown rice contains oils susceptible to rancidity. To keep it fresh longer, refrigerate in an airtight container.

Oh, Google Base advice? I've got that too: Submitting your items through the Google Base data API, while requiring more technical knowledge, gives you some additional flexibility. With the API, for instance, you're able to add, delete, or edit single items rather than having to generate a file and submit it. This can be very beneficial for web applications interfacing with Google Base or for content providers with large amounts of data.

Announcing Google Product Search

Google Base Blog — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:56:00 +0000

By Jessica Behling, Google Base Support

We're always excited to share our ongoing efforts to improve the search experience. Today we announced some updates to Froogle that simplify the user interface and make it more consistent with web search. At the same time, we renamed Froogle to Google Product Search. For more on this, please see our post on the Google Blog, and feel free to share your thoughts on Google Groups.

How to use the "product_type" attribute

Google Base Blog — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:54:00 +0000

By Naureen Kabir, Google Base Support

With Google Base, as with Google search more generally, our goal is to connect people with the information that is most relevant to them. Last month, Roshan wrote a post about maintaining the quality of your items so that they remain live in our search results. One of the things he mentioned that can help achieve this is the product_type attribute. We've been seeing a lot of files from providers submitting to the Products item type in which the product_type values are being specified in ways that won't allow our system to identify your product correctly when people are searching. So I wanted to clarify how to best enter values for this attribute.

The product_type attribute is used to categorize items so that we can match them to search results. Entering product types that are too general or that are incorrectly formatted causes our system to categorize your item incorrectly, and we won't be able to connect your product with the right searchers. So when you enter the product_type attribute, you should think specific and relevant. For example, if you're selling keyboards for computers, you should include "keyboards" as the product_type and not "computers." We strongly recommend that you to use our example product_type list as much as possible.

If your product doesn't fit with the exact values on the example product_type page, you can include some variations; the most important thing is that the product_type be relevant and that it distinguish between an actual product and the accessory for the product. For example, for the above keyboard example, the product type "usb keyboard" is also acceptable. If you're selling Ipod skins, the values "accessories" or "mp3 accessories" are fine.

Finally, some providers are including values such as "health, beauty, fragrances" or "MP3 Players > Ipod > Ipod Accessories > Ipod Skins" as their product_type values. Since we only accept one value, neither example works. Unfortunately, entering your values with commas or > symbols will miscategorize your products, and searchers won't be able to find them. So make sure you're using correctly formatted, relevant values when using the product_type attribute.

Accepting Google Spreadsheets tab-delimited files

Google Base Blog — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:06:00 +0000

By Naureen Kabir, Google Base Support

We're happy to let you know that Google Base is now accepting tab-delimited (or TSV) bulk upload files formatted using Google Spreadsheets. Most spreadsheet programs allow you to export data into a TSV file, and Google Spreadsheets is no exception. For instructions on converting your Google Spreadsheet to a tab-delimited file, click here. More details and information about tab-delimited files can be found here. Don't forget, if you have questions or feedback about this new feature, make sure to discuss them at our Help Discussion Group.

Spotlight on a Support Team Member: Jessica Behling

Google Base Blog — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:40:00 +0000

By Jessica Behling, Google Base Support

Hi, I'm Jessica, and I'm quickly approaching my one year anniversary with the Google Base team. A few days before I started with Google, I drove across half the country with my sister, two cats, and anything I could cram into the leftover space in my car. I've spent most of my life in Wisconsin and was more than happy to leave the snow behind! Outside of work, one of my favorite things to do is eat Korean food with a group of Googlers known as the Korean Food Club. When I'm not trying new food, you can find me visiting San Francisco, going to the movies, or relaxing and reading new books.

As part of the Google Base team, I spend a lot of time answering your email. Whether you have a question about how to get started with Google Base or about your file, I'm always happy to help. I enjoy helping our providers learn as much as they can about Google Base. In addition to answering emails, I also help create articles for the Google Base Help Center.

We're continually working to make the Help Center better, too. One new feature is Help Discussion Group results, a section of relevant Group articles that appears when you use the Help Center search box. Look for the Group results below the relevant Help Center search results, as they'll guide you to other Google Base users discussing the topic you've searched.

And when you have some time, visit the Google Base Help Discussion Group to find answers from people who have asked the same question. You can also help fellow users by posting answers to questions. Looking for a tip? When creating your bulk upload file, put yourself in your users' shoes: what type of information would be important if you were searching for a product? Information that adds value and will help match your items to a user's search query is exactly the sort of thing you should include in a relevant attribute in your bulk upload. For example, if you're submitting a "products" bulk upload, there are many additional attributes you can include based on your specific product type. If you're submitting your books, you could also include "author" and "genre" (just to name two) to the basic attributes.