Google Data » Google Merchant

Seize holiday shopping moments with new tools and insights

Rob Newton — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 14:59:00 +0000

This holiday season, shoppers are acting more quickly and more purposefully than ever before, with 7% less time spent in each mobile shopping session.¹ Yet those same shoppers are making 64% more mobile purchases than last year in the retail category, according to Google Analytics data.² Intent-filled shopping micro-moments will replace shopping marathons this season, and we’re rolling out three new features to help retailers act on these critical moments.

Optimize your shopping bids with remarketing lists

We’re excited to extend remarketing capabilities to both shopping ads (PLAs) and local inventory ads (LIAs) with shopping remarketing lists. Now you can optimize your shopping bids to re-engage high-value customers the next time they shop on Google.com. For example, when those who’ve abandoned their carts on your sites or your loyal customers shop again on Google on desktop or mobile, you can use remarketing lists to tailor your shopping bids and reconnect with them at a more cost-efficient ROI.

Early adopters are seeing great success with shopping remarketing lists:

“Shopping remarketing lists have proven incredibly successful for Magazines.com. We're able to strategically target consumers who did not convert in previous visits, driving 285% higher mobile and desktop conversion rates with 68% lower CPAs, making it one of the most effective features we’ve ever tested."
- Yuly Gonzalez, Sr. SEM Specialist, Rakuten Search

“With Shopping remarketing lists, our client Cruiser Customizing increased their conversion rate by 78% and their ROAS by 66%. We don’t want to have a single Shopping campaign now without shopping remarketing lists attached.”
- Jeremy Brown, Chief Marketing Officer, Metric Theory

Get better insights into the products in high demand online and near your stores

To help you make better decisions about which products to merchandise and promote in your stores, online, and via your Google shopping data feed, we recently rolled out two new tools:

First, with the new Shopping Insights tool, you can identify the products people are actively looking for online and around your stores.* Based on aggregated and indexed data from April to September of 2015, the tool lets you explore the most popular shopping product terms on Google, measure their significance over time, filter for cities, and compare how consumers search for products differently on mobile or desktop.

The Assortment Report uses your existing Google Merchant Center data feed to identify gaps in your product assortment based on the popular products shoppers are clicking on, in real-time, by product category. For example, if you offer toys, you might learn that you’re not yet stocking the Sphero BB-8 App-Enabled Droid from Star Wars, one of the hottest toys right now on Google. This report also provides benchmark selling prices for each of those missing products to help you with sourcing and pricing decisions.

Posted by Archana Kannan, Product Manager, Google Shopping

¹Google Analytics internal data, September 2015
²Google Analytics internal data, September 2015
^{* Available in the US, across all devices}

Shopping Assortment Report in Merchant Center gives retailers insight into demand for popular products they don’t stock

Rob Newton — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 18:06:00 +0000

We know that retailers are always interested in new opportunities to meet online customer demand -- especially during the busy holiday season. Today, we’re excited to introduce the Shopping Assortment Report in Google Merchant Center to help you plan your product assortment and reach even more shoppers online.

With the Shopping Assortment Report, you can quickly discover the top 100 products that you don’t already offer in your Merchant Center product feed for each Google Product Category. You can also see benchmark selling prices for these products. This information can be helpful in identifying new brands and products to add to your assortment, and reach even more customers with in-demand products. The data is based on the popularity of these products on Google Shopping, offering a near real-time view into online consumer demand for shoppable products.

Already, retailers are seeing success with the new Shopping Assortment Report. Daniel Dutton, Strategy leader at Target, says “Google's new Assortment Report has already become a useful tool for us to identify white space opportunities, from newly emerging products we didn't already carry, to out-of-stock products to prioritize for restocking.”

With this fresh and detailed information from the Shopping Assortment Report, you can:

Identify key products that are missing from your feed. Identify popular products you do sell, but may have forgotten to include in your data feed, or may have the incorrect GTIN associated with the product.
Expand your product offerings. Identify popular products you currently do not sell, but may wish to source from suppliers and add to your product feed.

Whether you’re looking to add more products to your inventory or research pricing, the Shopping Assortment Report can help you reach even more shoppers online this holiday season, and beyond. For information on how to get started, check out our Help Center article.

Posted by Matt Henderson, Product Manager for Google Shopping

Introducing automated extension for shopping ads (PLAs)

Rob Newton — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 14:01:00 +0000

We’re constantly looking for ways to give thoughtful, relevant information as shoppers browse, compare and research during their I-Want-to-Know moments. At the same time, we want to help you differentiate your products and stand out on Google.

Promotional text, an optional message added to your ad groups in AdWords, was part of our first efforts to do just that. We noticed many of you use promotional text to highlight special offers or free shipping, so today, we’re excited to introduce new automated extensions for shopping ads (PLAs).

Automated extension for shopping ads

These new extensions are displayed alongside your shopping ads (PLAs) at no additional work or cost. They use existing information you’ve provided in your Merchant Center settings and data feed to automatically show free shipping and price drop information in a consistent and digestible way for shoppers.

Promotional text retirement

Based on initial results, we’re seeing shoppers prefer these new automated extensions over promotional text and advertisers are getting better click through rates with it too. Thus, we’ll be retiring promotional text at the end of September 2015 and start surfacing automated extensions more frequently instead.

For those who use promotional text, no additional action is needed. Your ads won’t be otherwise affected and will continue to reach shoppers searching on Google. If you want to highlight other offers aside from free shipping and sale prices, we strongly encourage you to take advantage of our other shopping extensions:

Merchant promotions to share discounts and promo codes
Product ratings to display aggregated star ratings and link to customer reviews
Trusted Stores certification to show the world you’re trusted by Google as a great place to shop

Availability of this extension may vary by country, so check out the above help center articles for more details. You can find more information on automated extensions in our help center as well.

Posted by Tom Beyer, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Easily update and validate ads with new enhancements to Merchant Center data feeds

Rob Newton — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Your data feed is key to promoting your products on Google.com — it lets you capture the attention of shoppers by letting them know you’ve got exactly what they’re looking for. To help you seamlessly update ads and quickly get products in front of new customers, today we’re excited to announce two data feed enhancements to Google Merchant Center — one that improves efficiencies for large retailers, and one that helps small retailers get on board more easily:

Online product inventory feeds: a new feed type that lets you quickly update price, availability and sale price of your key products. This is especially useful for larger retailers that need to change these attributes frequently.
Google Sheets add-on: a Sheets extension that connects your spreadsheet directly to Merchant Center for a faster and easier upload. This is especially useful to for smaller retailers looking to get up and running quickly with shopping ads.

Whether you use Google Sheets or text file formats to upload your products, these new data feed enhancements make it faster and easier to upload your most up-to-date product information to Google Shopping and find more customers online.

Online product inventory feeds help you quickly update key attributes

If the price, availability, or sale price information for some or all of your products changes frequently, online product inventory feeds is a new feed type to make quick updates to these product attributes, without having to re-submit the full product feed:

Save time with even faster feed processing: Submit new information for price and availability throughout the day to update these specific attributes. You can submit updates for just a small subset of your products for faster processing. If there’s an error processing your online inventory feed, your full product feed will not be impacted.
Show shoppers the most accurate product details: When your pricing or availability suddenly changes, update your affected items on the fly, allowing fresher information to appear on Google Shopping.

For more information on how to get started with online inventory feeds, check out our Help Center article.

Validate and upload your feed directly from Google Sheets

Google Sheets was designed to provide a fast and friendly way to get started with shopping ads for small and medium sized retailers. If you use Google Sheets to upload your inventory to Google Merchant Center, the new Google Sheets add-on simplifies how you create, upload and validate feeds:

Validate your products directly from Sheets: The sidebar in the add-on allows you to validate individual rows or your entire Google Sheet, showing you any errors and warnings before you upload your data feed.
Upload your products directly from Sheets: From the sidebar, you can upload your entire spreadsheet into Merchant Center, without leaving Sheets. The results of your upload are displayed directly in the sidebar, giving you immediate feedback on feed processing.

For more information on how to get started with Google Sheet add-on, visit our Help Center article.

Be sure to check out these two new enhancements today to get up and running on Google Shopping and make the world your storefront.

Posted by Sven Herschel, Product Manager for Google Merchant Center

Updates to Google Merchant Center Terms of Service

Inside AdWords crew — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:09:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Commerce blog)

Back in January, we announced our new Google Terms of Service to provide a more consistent experience for users across Google's products. Starting today, March 29, Google Merchant Center will be covered by the new Google Terms of Service along with a short set of additional terms and conditions specific to Merchant Center.

While the substance in the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions remains unchanged from the previous version, the new additional terms and conditions are shorter and reworded to be easier to understand. We encourage you to take the time to review the new Google Terms of Service along with the additional Merchant Center terms and conditions.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Merchant Center team

Thank you for reading!

lcoffey — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:01:00 +0000

As you may know, we recently launched the Google Commerce blog to share updates on all of the exciting things happening at Google in the shopping space. To simplify how we share information, we’ll begin posting all merchant-related updates to the Google Commerce blog, and this will be the last post to the Google Merchant blog. We encourage you to update your feeds and follow the Google Commerce blog to stay up to date on Google Product Search, Google Offers, Google Wallet, Google Catalogs for tablets, and more.

Posted by Lisa Coffey, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

Upcoming Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policy Changes

lcoffey — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:46:00 +0000

As we announced in July, the new Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies will go into effect on September 22, 2011. After this date, accounts that do not comply with the new requirements may be suspended.

New tools to help you prepare

First, use the new Test Data Feed feature in Google Merchant Center (under “Data Feeds”) to test whether your updated feed complies with the new requirements. You will be able to download a full error report and resolve any issues prior to submitting your actual live feed. Rest assured, your test feed won’t appear on Google Product Search.
For additional guidance, you can now view our new video tutorials:

We are revamping the "Data Quality" tab in Google Merchant Center to enable you to quickly view the most critical data quality errors, and learn how to fix them (coming soon).

Understanding the new requirements

We’ve received a few questions about specific attributes and have addressed these below. It’s a lot to read, but should save you time in the long run. Also, before you cancel vacation for your IT staff, please note that many of the requirements only apply to certain countries and categories.

Google Product Category (aka GPC): This attribute ensures that your products appear in the right category (you wouldn’t want that Harry Potter DVD showing up under “Books”) and that we apply the correct set of enforcement rules for a given category.

GPC is only required for feeds targeting the US, UK, Germany, France or Japan
You don’t necessarily have to send us this attribute. It is only required for items that belong to one of the following seven categories:

1. Apparel & Accessories > Clothing

2. Apparel & Accessories > Shoes

3. Apparel & Accessories

4. Media > Books

5. Media > DVDs & Movies

6. Media > Music

7. Software > Video Game Software

For items falling under these categories, you must include one of these seven values appropriately for each item.
More granular categorization is always preferred, but don’t stress out about this. If you can follow the level of categorization above, then you’ve satisfied our requirements.

Images: We made image_link required for all products. Images are especially important for product in the “Apparel & Accessories” category, where shoppers love to see the different variations of a product.

Required worldwide (except Japan)
For products that fall under “Apparel & Accessories” (and all corresponding sub-categories), we require unique images for products that differ by the variant attribute ‘color’, or ‘pattern’, or ‘material.’ No one likes seeing a black sweater when they click on the red one.
We recommend sending separate images for variant products in other categories as well, but these are only required for “Apparel & Accessories.”

Apparel/ Variants: Variety is the spice of life, and we’re working to create a richer shopping experience for apparel & accessories that come in multiple colors, patterns, sizes, etc.

Apparel variants are only required for feeds targeting the US. For feeds targeting other countries, the attributes are recommended and may be required in the future.
Variant-level information is required only for products in the “'Apparel & Accessories' category, and all related subcategories
You only need to send us data for variant attributes if your product varies by that specific attribute. So, if your shirts are all made of cotton, there’s no need to send the “Material” attribute. However, if your shirts were available in three colors and three sizes, you would send us nine separate line items, varying by color and size.
There is no penalty for not sending variant level data for other categories
If you include variants, you also need to ensure that you send an “item_group_id” to connect those variants and that these group of variants share the same common title. More on this below.

Item_Group_ID: We use this attribute to cluster together all the variants you send us for a given item. Sort of like Crazy Glue for variants.

This attribute is required only for variant Apparel products in the US.
If you have a “Parent SKU” shared by all variants of a product, you can provide that as the value for 'item group id'.
If you send us an item_group_id attribute, we will automatically look for variant attributes. Conversely, if you did send us Item_group_id, you should ensure you send us at least one variant attribute.

Size: This is an important Variant attribute for “Apparel & Accessories.”

Size is only required for feeds targeting the US.
Separate your products into different line items in the feed (each line will have a different “size” attribute, and maybe even vary by other attributes)
There’s no need to send separate images for separate sizes (unless the appearance of the item changes because of the size)

Please refer back to our detailed Product Feed Specification and Help Center for more information. We hope these tips will help you be more fully prepared to make the most of Google Product Search as we head into the most important selling season of the year for online retailers.

Shop On!

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search

The +1 Button for Retailers

lcoffey — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:32:00 +0000

(Cross-posted on the Google Retail and Google Commerce blogs)

The people we know and trust have a big influence on our purchase decisions. I bought the chef’s knife I use every day on the recommendation of my friend Eliot, who more than knows his way around the kitchen. And I always try to bring my friend Brian along when I’m music shopping, since he has a knack for pointing out great albums I’ve never heard of.

We’re excited about the +1 button because it brings these personal recommendations to a place where many purchase decisions start -- the Google search results page.

Adding +1 buttons to your product pages makes it easy for your customers to recommend the products they love on your site with a single click. And thanks to recent improvements to the +1 button, they can take the conversation even further by sharing your products right away on Google+.

From there, +1 annotations can help your products stand out. Potential customers might see +1’s from their friends and contacts on your search ads, your organic Google Search results, or even on your page itself.

We’ve worked with Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews to make it even easier to get the +1 button on your pages. Both companies have extensive experience in social commerce, and can help you develop the right strategy for implementing +1 buttons on your site.

Looking for a couple examples of retailers using +1 to help their products stand out on Google search? Jockey (working with PowerReviews) and Golfsmith (working with Bazaarvoice) have already added +1 buttons to the product pages on their sites.

If you’d prefer to add the +1 button to pages yourself, it’s easy to do. Just install a small snippet of code wherever you want the +1 button to appear. For advanced implementation FAQs and documentation, you can visit the +1 button page on Google Code.

As more retailers add +1 buttons to their sites, we’re excited about how much more helpful search results will get. The next time I need a new frying pan, I won’t need to call Eliot up -- his recommendation will be right there waiting for me.

Posted by Brian Lam, Strategic Partner Manager

Important changes to Google Product Search feed specification & policies

Vivek Tata — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:07:00 +0000

Updated 7am PST to include updates on China and Australia.

In 2011, we are committed to making Google Product Search an even better shopping experience for our users. Our goal is for shoppers to quickly and easily find the information they need on Google Product Search - and in turn to send more shoppers to our merchants.

To support this effort, we’re announcing a number of changes to the Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies. Starting on September 22, 2011 we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the United States, France, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany that do not comply with the new specification and policy requirements. We will be sending emails to those accounts with feeds targeting China, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, with more information about changes in those countries.

Summary of Changes
We are confident that the new feed specifications will have a strong impact on the user experience. Below are several examples of how the feed spec is changing in the United States; please note that other countries have slightly different requirements:

Availability: We’d like a user to be able to find your products even when they are out of stock. For this reason, the [availability] status of all your items will be required.
Google Product Category: We have added a new required high-level attribute called [google product category] that contains the category of the item in Google’s taxonomy (currently only required for a select number of categories). This is in addition to the current [product type] attribute.
Images: We’re making [image link] required and we encourage you to submit up to 10 additional product images through [additional image link]. This way, you can improve the visual representation of your products.
Apparel: In order to create a better experience for product variants such as dresses or shoes that are available in multiple colors or sizes, we ask you to include information like [size] and [color] in your product feed. In addition, we require you to provide [gender] and [age group].
Data Freshness: We will continue to regularly check feeds for accuracy of pricing, availability, and general product information, and take action against accounts that violate our standards.

Merchant Resources
Below you’ll find the new feed specification and policies and resources to help you prepare for these changes.

We will also provide a video with a more in-depth look at the changes soon. Check back for more information.

Enforcing the new Product Search Feed Requirements and Policies
After September 22, 2011, we will be taking action against accounts with feeds targeting the US, UK, Germany, Japan, and France that do not comply with our policies (please review the policy document referenced above for details). Note these changes only apply to Google Product Search - not to Google product ad formats or Google Commerce Search.

Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

An update to tax & shipping requirements

lcoffey — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:04:00 +0000

On March 14, we let you know about a new set of data requirements for Product Search merchants. As part of these changes, we communicated that shipping and tax information would be required in your data feeds as of June 6.

However, based on feedback we’ve received from merchants, we are extending the deadline until September 1, allowing you more time to modify your data feeds. We are also permitting estimates for tax/shipping information. However, we recommend reviewing the submission options and submitting the most accurate information that you can, as this ensures the best experience for shoppers.

Here is a summary of what’s changing:

For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany: The June 6 deadline for providing shipping information has been extended to September 1.

For Feeds Targeting the United States: The June 6 deadline for providing tax information has been extended to September 1.

Posted by Robin Zuger, Product Manager on the Google Shopping Team

An update on the Google Base API deprecation timeline

lcoffey — Fri, 27 May 2011 01:20:00 +0000

As we announced in December, the Google Base API will soon be decommissioned, and current Google Base API users are encouraged to migrate to the new Shopping APIs as soon as possible. Below you’ll find an updated timeline for the Base API deprecation and resources to guide you through the transition.

Updated Timeline
As of June 1, users will no longer be able to create a new Google Base account. However, current Base API users will have a one month grace period to continue using the Base API until July 1. After July 1, users will no longer be able to submit or access content through the Base API. The login at base.google.com will be removed as of June 1.

Resources

Posted by Andrew Eames, Software Engineer, Google Shopping

Mobile shopping: a big opportunity for retailers

lcoffey — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:11:00 +0000

At an event in New York City today, we announced Google Wallet, an app that will turn shoppers’ phones into their wallets. Google Wallet will enable consumers to store their credit cards, coupons, loyalty and gift cards securely on their phone, so they can pay, redeem offers, and earn loyalty points - all with a single tap of their phone. It is in a field test now and will be available to all consumers this summer.

A key benefit to retailers will be the integration of coupons, or offers, into Google Wallet. We’ve been testing a variety of offers - from discounts directly within search ads to check-in offers to offers in Google Places. Over time, consumers will be able to save each of these offers directly to their Google Wallet. That means consumers will get the benefit of carrying their offers with them at all times, bringing retailers targeted foot traffic.

The integration of offers into Google Wallet will enable merchants to close the loop by directly connecting their online and mobile advertising with offline purchases. In addition, Google Wallet provides merchants with a way to engage with customers in-store, enhancing the customer experience. Many leading merchants are integrating Google Wallet into their stores.

From the outset, Google Wallet will be compatible with more than a hundred thousand merchants nationwide that are part of the MasterCard PayPass network - a merchant point of sale service that enables consumers to tap to pay.

We’re also working with leading retailers and point of sale systems companies to integrate Google Wallet into their physical store experience. Participating retailers include: American Eagle Outfitters, Bloomingdale’s, Champs Sports, The Container Store, Duane Reade, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy’s, Noah's Bagels, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, RadioShack, Subway, Toys“R”Us and Walgreens.

Google Wallet is currently being field tested, and we plan to release it soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more at our website: www.google.com/wallet.

Posted by Spencer Spinnell, Director of Commerce Partnerships

Focus on the Feed: Four Ways Submitting a Product Data Feed Can Help Your Business

Vivek Tata — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:30:00 +0000

If you’re a retailer, you've probably seen the shopping results on Google.com and Google Product Search. These results are generally based on product feeds that retailers submit, for free, to the Google Merchant Center.

There are four key benefits for retailers who upload product feeds:
Free, Qualified Traffic through Google Product Search, a shopping search engine that helps consumers discover product information, compare prices and find a retailer from whom they can make a purchase. This is free traffic to your retail website, which you can only benefit from by submitting a product feed.
Richer AdWords Formats such as product extensions use the product feed to automatically display your products within AdWords ads where relevant.
Improve On-Site Conversion with Google Commerce Search. Commerce Search leverages your product feed and innovations of Google.com to deliver a powerful search and discovery experience on your e-commerce site. Among other things, Google Commerce Search provides an interactive shopping experience - which includes features like automated promotions and instant results - found only on the top retail websites, as well as a powerful merchandising suite that helps you integrate business goals and adapt to market dynamics.
Reach Mobile Shoppers through Google Shopper, our shopping application for Android and iPhone, Shopping for Mobile, our shopping website, and Google Commerce Search on your mobile website. On-the-go shoppers will be able to discover goods you submit in your product feed.

To take advantage of the unique features associated with the merchant feed, first submit your product data feed at the Google Merchant Center and then explore the hyperlinks listed above.

Posted by Kirill Kounik, Google Commerce Team

Shopping made easy for developers at Google I/O

lcoffey — Fri, 06 May 2011 05:19:00 +0000

The Google I/O developer conference is coming up next week, on May 10-11, 2011 in San Francisco, California. The first day of the conference will feature the first-ever Commerce track, and we want to give you sneak preview of the Google Shopping Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) session.

Shopping APIs have two main components: Content and Search. The Content API makes it easy to upload items as well as quickly change price or availability of your items. The Search API brings the power of Google search to your e-commerce website. In this session, we will walk you through code samples and various use cases for uploading data to Google using the Content API for Shopping. We also show you live demos of retail sites using Search API for Shopping and Google Commerce Search to power e-commerce on their site.

We are excited about Google I/O and look forward to seeing you in San Francisco.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager and Ali Afshar, Developer Programs Engineer

Enforcement of our Unique Identifier Policy

lcoffey — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:23:00 +0000

As we announced on March 14, and in emails to all Product Search merchants, today we will begin requiring unique identifiers for products in all categories except for apparel, custom, and one-of-a-kind items. These requirements are part of an ongoing effort to make Product Search better for our users. Our unique identifier requirements enable us to build detailed product pages to help shoppers learn about products and compare prices from across the web. These unique identifiers are required for Google Product Search and Product Ads, and this policy will not impact Google Commerce Search.

We will be gradually enforcing this policy over the next few weeks, with full enforcement in effect on June 20th. During this time, products that do not have correct unique identifiers may not appear in our product listings. If you have products that do not have correct unique identifiers, we recommend that you make the necessary changes as soon as possible.

Please note that in the weeks after June 20th, we will begin disapproving the feeds of merchants who have a significant percentage of items that do not include the correct unique identifiers.

For more information on unique identifiers, and what we require, please see our Help Center. If you did not receive the email informing you of this change, please make sure to update your contact information in the "Settings" tab of the Google Merchant Center. The unique identifier requirement is part of a broader set of changes we plan to announce in the coming months. By checking this blog often and providing your contact information in your account, you can stay up to date with our requirements. Thank you for helping us improve the Product Search experience for our users.

Posted by Karen Corby, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Google Shopping Arrives in Australia, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands

Vivek Tata — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:11:00 +0000

It’s fair to say Europeans love to shop online. According to industry analysts comScore, three quarters of Europeans visited an e-commerce site in January this year, spending an average of 52 minutes on e-tail sites during the month. That’s why we’re delighted to announce that Google Shopping (also known as Google Product Search in the US) is now available in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. We're also launching both the Google Merchant Center and Google Shopping in Australia today.

If you’re already submitting a feed to the Google Merchant Center and you'd like to reach more customers in these countries, you don't need to create a new account. Just create a new feed for each country, and make sure it complies complies with our policies. Then, when registering your feed, choose the target country from the drop-down menu. If you're a new merchant, we recommend reading the "Getting Started" articles in our Help Center.

In conjunction with Google Shopping, retailers that choose to advertise their product catalogue can now do so through AdWords product extensions in these countries as well. Product extensions use the product information submitted by the retailer and automatically displays this information within ads, where relevant. To learn more about product extensions, visit our AdWords Help Center.

Happy shopping!

Posted by Amy Gepfert, Program Manager, Google Shopping

Reminder: Deprecation of Google Base API on June 1, 2011

lcoffey — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:32:00 +0000

Back in December, we announced that on June 1, 2011, the Google Base Data API will be decommissioned and it will no longer be possible to submit or access content through the Base API.

To replace the Base API, we’ve introduced two new Shopping APIs: Content API and Search API. If you currently use the Base API for managing your products on Google Product Search, you should prepare for the June 1 change by migrating to the new APIs as soon as possible. These resources will guide you through the transition:

If you are a retailer using Google Commerce Search to power search and navigation on your e-commerce site, you will also need to ensure that you are fully migrated over to the new Shopping APIs by June 1. In addition to the documentation above, please also make note of the Migration Guide for Google Commerce Search. Furthermore, if you require any technical support, please submit a request through the Support Portal.

Posted by Kirill Kounik, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Reminder: New data feed requirements for Google Product Search merchants

lcoffey — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:44:00 +0000

Last month, we announced a few upcoming changes to merchant feed requirements for Google Product Search listings. This is a reminder that on May 3, we’ll begin requiring unique identifiers for all products (except apparel and one-of-a-kind items) for feeds targeting the US, UK, France, and Germany. After May 3, products without unique identifiers may not be listed on Google Product Search. As you’re preparing for the May 3 data requirement, keep in mind that on June 6, additional data requirements will also take effect. View the original blog post to learn more and get a head start on these changes.

Posted by Enrique Munoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

A new way to share local product availability with your customers

lcoffey — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:47:00 +0000

If you've ever spent your Saturday calling different stores or driving around town in search of one specific product, then it probably occurred to you that there must be a better way. Today we're announcing Local Product Availability on Google Place Pages - a new feature that automatically brings your offline catalog to the web, letting customers view your products and search your local inventory on your Place Page before visiting your store.

When you provide Google with local product availability data, your Google Place Page will now automatically include a new section, ‘Popular products available at this store’, featuring five popular products along with price and local availability. For shoppers unfamiliar with your business, this section shows the types of products available in your store.

If shoppers are looking for a specific item, they can click ‘Search within this store’ to search your product inventory to see if a particular item is in stock nearby.

Getting started
To automatically display local product availability on your Google Place page, you’ll need to first share local availability data with Google through a Merchant Center account and claim your a Google Place page. For instructions on sharing local product availability with Google, read this Help Center article. Learn how to claim your Google Place page here.

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

Introducing a new way to retail: Google Commerce Search 3.0

lcoffey — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:15:00 +0000

As we announced on the Official Google Blog, we’ve just launched the third-generation of Google Commerce Search – our search solution for e-commerce websites. For the many retailers already submitting their product data feeds to Google via Product Search, our solution may be an interesting consideration for powering search and browse capabilities on your website.

Google Commerce Search uses your existing product search data feed to power a relevant and completely customizable search experience on your e-commerce website. In fact customers like Woodcraft Supply, HealthWarehouse.com and BabyAge.com have all leveraged this exact data feed to quickly improve their web experience and deliver strong business returns – in the case of Woodcraft.com increasing search revenues 34%.

With the new release, we’re making shopping more interactive, introducing multi-channel product discovery, and providing sophisticated tools to help retailers manage the shopping experience on their site.

Here are some of the cool new features in this release:

Search As You Type: Search is quickly becoming a more interactive experience. Search As You Type provides instant gratification to shoppers – returning product results with every keystroke, right from the search bar.
Local Product Availability: This year, 46% of retail sales will be influenced by online research – but more than 90% of total retail transactions will occur in-store (eMarketer, June 2010). Local Product Availability helps retailers bridge online and offline sales by showing shoppers when a product is also available in a store nearby – in-line with the search results.
Enhanced Merchandising: Retailers need to be agile to effectively respond to shopping trends and market dynamics – for example ramping up certain underdog basketball team apparel going into the Final Four! Our new merchandising tools allow retailers to easily set query-based landing pages, and to create promotions that display alongside related search queries in retailer-designated banner areas.
Product Recommendations (Labs): To help consumers discover related products, Product Recommendations show shoppers what other people viewed and ultimately bought.

With this release we're also welcoming three new retail partners: Forever21, General Nutrition Company (GNC) and L’Occitane. GNC implemented Google Commerce Search in less than a week on their mobile website, while Forever 21 and L’Occitane are currently working to implement various new features of GCS, such as Search as You Type and Local Product Availability. Here’s what Christine Burke, VP of International E-Commerce at cosmetics staple L’Occitane had to say about GCS 3.0:

“L’Occitane is unique in that our beauty products center around ingredients - such as lavender, shea butter and verbena. As our customers visit our re-designed website to shop and research our products, we are excited about the speed and accuracy of on-site search results that will be provided to us through Google Commerce Search. We are also very excited about the potential of the new local inventory feature, which can help us connect our customers with their favorite products in one of our 170 US boutiques.”

Learn how you can provide the latest in retail technology on your website with Google Commerce Search. Sign up for our upcoming webinar (details below). You’ll hear from Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, in conversation with Google Commerce Search customers about how these new features are transforming retail for the better.

Google Commerce Search 3.0: Driving user engagement and cross-channel coordination in retail
Wednesday, May 5, 2011
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT

Posted by Richard Liu, Engineering Manager, Google Commerce Search

Changes for Google Product Search Merchants

Vivek Tata — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:26:00 +0000

To help Google Product Search shoppers accurately compare prices and learn more about products they want to buy, we’re making some changes to our data requirements and our feed specification. Please note that these changes will only affect Google Product Search listings and will not apply to Google Commerce Search or AdWords ad formats.

For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany

Unique Product Identifiers [required for most categories]: With user reviews, prices, related items, and videos, "product pages" (example: Canon S95) help users make decisions about what to buy. To help us match product listings to these pages, we ask merchants to provide “unique product identifiers.” Starting May 3, we will require unique identifiers for all products except apparel and one-of-a-kind items. Products without unique product identifiers may not be listed in Google Product Search, though the feed may not be disapproved. To learn more about these identifiers, please visit our Help Center.

Shipping Information [required] When shoppers are trying to find the best deal, online or offline, they need to know the full cost of an item - including the cost of shipping. To help them accurately compare prices, we will begin requiring shipping information for Google Product Search on June 6th. After that date, we may disapprove feeds from accounts that do not include this information. Please visit this Help Center article to learn more about how to specify shipping costs either at the account or item level.

For Feeds Targeting the United States

Tax Information [required]: To ensure that shoppers have a seamless experience when they click through from Google Product Search to your site, we’re making tax information required for all feeds targeting the United States. As we’re doing with shipping cost information, we will be making this change on June 6th; after that date, product listings that do not include tax information at the account level, or in the “tax” attribute, may be rejected. You can learn more about providing tax information in this Help Center article. (Please note that feeds targeted to countries other than the United States already require inclusion of VAT in the “price” attribute.)

New Sale Price Attributes [recommended] Shoppers everywhere love sales. To help make sure your sale price is included in Google Product Search, and for the right duration, we’re adding two attributes to the United States Product Search feed specification, “sale price” and “sale price effective date.” The attributes are recommended for the items that you have put on sale, but are not required. If you do include these new attributes, you should continue to provide the “price” attribute with the non-sale price from your website. You can learn more about these new attributes in our Help Center.

Posted by Enrique Munoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Keeping the Momentum Going in 2011

Vivek Tata — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:43:00 +0000

Now that you’ve settled into 2011, you’re probably thinking about what you need to do to make it a great year. To help get you started, we’d like to offer two suggestions to improve your Google Product Search experience:

Include “rel=canonical” tags on your website. Many merchants have several identical product pages for each item. With the rel="canonical" tag, your webmaster can indicate which URL you'd like to include on Google.com. This tag is necessary for participation in Rich Snippets, and also allows you to provide clean, user-friendly URLs that don’t include excess tracking or category navigation parameters. You can read more about the “rel=canonical” tag in a previous blog post.

Update your technical contact in the Google Merchant Center. If you’ve ever wondered why your feed didn’t process, then you should ensure that your contact information is up-to-date in the Google Merchant Center’s Settings page. We'll send an email to this address if there are technical issues with your account, such as problems with the content you submitted. We may also send you helpful suggestions on topics like data quality.

Posted by Natasha Prats, Partner Manager, Google Product Search

Google Merchant Center Launches in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands

Vivek Tata — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Later this year, we plan to launch Google Shopping*, our shopping search engine, in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. To participate in this free service, merchants use a site called the Google Merchant Center to submit and track their product data feeds. To give all merchants time to submit their products and be included in Google Shopping when it launches, we have opened the Google Merchant Center for these countries early. Once Google Shopping has launched, products submitted through the Google Merchant Center may also appear in relevant 'Shopping results' on Google.es, Google.nl, and Google.it.

If you're a new merchant and would like to start submitting your products to Google for Spain, Italy, or the Netherlands, we recommend checking out the 'Getting Started' articles in our Help Center, and then reviewing the data feed instructions and requirements for your target country. Existing Merchant Center users now have the option to select Spain, Italy and the Netherlands from the target country drop-down menu when registering their feeds in the Merchant Center.

As we launch in new locations, we want it to be easy for you to make your products accessible to customers around the world. Our data requirements differ by country, so you can now view the data feed specifications for all countries in your native language by using the drop-down box on the top of the Data Feed Specification help article.

*Known as Google Product Search in the United States and the UK.

Posted by Kirill Kounik, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Woodcraft.com Hammers Home a 34% Increase in Search Revenue with Google Commerce Search

Vivek Tata — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 17:25:00 +0000

(Cross posted on the Google Commerce Blog.)

Editor’s note: Woodcraft Supply is one of the nation’s oldest and largest suppliers of quality woodworking tools and supplies, offering more than 20,000 products through its retail stores, catalog, and website. We’ve invited today’s guest blogger, Nancy Miller, VP of Internet Sales and Development for Woodcraft Supply, to talk about how Google has helped her increase search revenue and transform Woodcraft’s online store. To learn more about her experience, read the Woodcraft.com case study.

At Woodcraft, we strive to provide the best experience for our customers, which means helping them find the right tool for the project. To this end, our retail stores are staffed with knowledgeable woodworkers. Online, we need a powerful search engine.

Prior to our switch to Google Commerce Search, Woodcraft had been using another popular third-party search solution - but we just weren’t seeing the same level of satisfaction on our website as we were in our stores. Visitors to our site often couldn’t find the products they were looking for, and our support team fielded a lot of complaints. Our customers were frustrated and our conversions suffered so we decided to make a change.

After thorough research, we picked Google to host our e-commerce search; their service provided better results, improved rankings, and an intuitive administrator interface. Google Commerce Search is simpler to maintain and much more effective than our old solution - even before customization. In fact, during our testing period we moved half of our traffic to Google Commerce Search and left the remainder on our existing solution – and with Google our conversions from search were 27.7 percent higher and our search revenues were up 34 percent!

Beyond providing a multifaceted search experience with better results, and increasing our online sales, Google Commerce Search has made our customers and employees much happier with our website. The complaints have virtually disappeared, giving us more time to focus on our passion: woodworking.

Above: Nancy Miller, Kyle Crabtree, Chris Brown, Matt Hall, Steve Markle September Fleming, and Daniel Pennock with their latest woodworking project.

Posted by Nancy Miller, Woodcraft Supply

Announcing Google Shopper for iPhone

Vivek Tata — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:38:00 +0000

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

As we announced last November, millions of people have downloaded Google Shopper for Android to help them shop on the go. Today, we're excited to let you know that Google Shopper, our popular Android shopping application, is now available for iPhone as a download in the App Store. Google Shopper turns your iPhone into a shopping assistant, so you can:

Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews
Compare prices at online and local stores
Save and share products for later consideration

Let's say you're planning a special meal for Valentine's Day - but you need a cast-iron skillet to get the recipe just right. With Shopper, finding one is easy enough: just type in "cast iron skillet" or say it using Voice Search. Then, from the results, you can choose a specific product that appeals to you. Alternatively, if you were in the store and wanted to see product reviews, you could also scan the barcode of a particular product.

Once you've selected a product result, you can compare prices across web retailers, and even find where you can purchase the item nearby, which is especially useful for those of us who are last-minute shoppers. For some retailers, we also provide inventory information so you can see if a particular store branch has the item in stock, has limited availability, or if the item is out of stock and you should head to a different store.

If you're not sure about making a purchase or are building out a gift list, you can "star" products for future consideration. You can also share items with friends across your social network to let them know about products you love or great deals you've found.

You can download Google Shopper for free in the App Store. Shopper is available for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0+ in English only for the United States and the UK.

We hope you enjoy shopping with Google Shopper!

Posted by Richard Hung, Senior Product Manager, Google Shopper

Announcing Google Shopper for iPhone

Vivek Tata — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:38:00 +0000

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews
Compare prices at online and local stores
Save and share products for later consideration

You can download Google Shopper for free in the App Store. Shopper is available for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0+ in English only for the United States and the UK.

We hope you enjoy shopping with Google Shopper!

Posted by Richard Hung, Senior Product Manager, Google Shopper

Going to the Source to Improve Product Data

Vivek Tata — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Does this drill require one battery, or two? How long is the included AC adapter cord? When you're buying items online rather than in a store, it can be hard to make sure you have all the information you need about a product. To help solve this problem, Google Product Search's "product pages" aggregate all the information we have about an item on one page (for example, see our page for the Canon S95 camera). To make these pages even better, we plan on working with suppliers and manufacturers to get product data straight from the source.

We are starting this effort through a business partnership with Edgenet, a provider of product data management solutions. Manufacturers and suppliers can work directly with Edgenet's Ezeedata service to submit high-quality product data and images to Google. For more information, you can visit their website, at www.edgenet.com.

Posted by Brian Lam, Strategic Partner Manager, Google Product Search

Going to the Source to Improve Product Data

Vivek Tata — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:01:00 +0000

Go ‘big’ in 2011 – Join Us at NRF’s BIG Show

Vivek Tata — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:59:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)
If your company runs an ecommerce website, you’re probably taking a well deserved break with the end of the holiday rush. But as we move into a new year, it’s also a great time to start thinking about how to give your customers an even better online shopping experience.

We’re also looking forward to an exciting 2011 and to kick things off, we’re heading to New York next week to be part of the National Retail Federation's BIG Show. Visit us at Booth #3239 from January 10-13 where you’ll be able to speak with the Google Commerce Search and Google Product Search teams, and learn how our commerce offerings can help bring visitors to your site, optimize their experience, and convert them into loyal customers.

On Monday, join our afternoon session where we discuss ‘In Stock Nearby: The Next Step in Shopping’. Paul Lee, Senior Product Manager, will set out how to serve today’s cross-channel shopper, regardless of platform or location.

On Tuesday morning, don’t miss our session on ‘Search Insights’, where Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager on Google Commerce Search, will explain how increasingly sophisticated online shoppers are driving innovations in search.

We’re looking forward to a ‘big’ few days and hope to see you in New York next week.

Posted by Derek Niddery, Google Commerce Search Team

Go ‘big’ in 2011 – Join Us at NRF’s BIG Show

Vivek Tata — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Posted by Derek Niddery, Google Commerce Search Team

Nearby Shops launched for Product Search in the UK

Vivek Tata — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0000

The holidays are fast upon us and for high street shoppers that can mean but one thing: holiday sales. To help last-minute shoppers find those bargains, we’re pleased to announce the launch of Nearby Shops for the UK. Starting today, when shoppers search for items on Product Search, they can use the ‘Nearby Shops’ link to show merchants near them that may sell that item.

For UK merchants, you can appear in the Nearby Stores feature by linking your Google Places and Google Merchant Center account with the same website URL. To learn more, visit our help center.

Posted by Emma Burrows, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Nearby Shops launched for Product Search in the UK

Vivek Tata — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0000

New Shopping APIs and Deprecation of the Base API

Vivek Tata — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:30:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce our newest addition to the shopping family -- simple yet powerful programmatic interfaces that enable retailers to upload their content to and query data from Google. The new Shopping Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have two main components: Content and Search. As part of this launch, we’re are also sunsetting the Base API and replacing it with these new Shopping APIs.

Content API for Shopping
Thousands of retailers upload product data to Google for use on multiple destinations like Google Product Search, Product Ads, Google Affiliate Network, Google Commerce Search, and shopping rich snippets. Our new Content API makes it easier and faster to upload this product data to Google. Retailers can use the Content API to upload their data and make incremental updates to frequently changing attributes like price and availability. Marketplaces and Aggregators can also use the new Content API to manage multiple client accounts. The Content API is immediately available and you can learn more about it here.

Search API for Shopping
We are also announcing a new Search API that makes it easy for our Google Commerce Search customers, Google Affiliate Network publishers and developers to build innovative applications using product data. The Search API simplifies access to product data and is optimized to deliver the most relevant product results. To get started with the Search API, you can sign in to the API console.

Shopping APIs Replace Base API
These new Shopping APIs replace the existing Google Base Data API for our content providers & search applications. We are deprecating the Base API and will fully decommission it on June 1, 2011. Developers using the Base API for shopping data should migrate to the new Shopping APIs for uploading their content and using data for search applications. There are a few non-shopping data types that won’t be supported with new Shopping APIs, such as jobs, real estate, events, and activities. We hope this won’t cause too much disruption, and we recommend developers use Google Site Search and other search technologies for those use cases. You can read a more detailed FAQ on Google Base Data API Deprecation here.

Posted by Philippe Altherr and Wenchao Tong, Software Engineers, Google Shopping Team

Holiday Updates to Google Product Search and Google Shopper

Vivek Tata — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 01:10:00 +0000

Earlier today, we announced some exciting holiday updates on the Official Google Blog:

On Google Product Search and in Shopping results on Google.com, we are now showing local availability information to help shoppers find products in stores nearby. We also announced that we have partnered with software providers like Epicor, JDA, and Oracle to make it easier for retailers to submit this local availability data. To learn more, you can read the blog post on the Google Retail Blog, and visit our information page.
We're rolling out two new features in our search results on Google Product Search, "popular products" and "aisles," to help users discover new products. "Popular products" shows you what other users are viewing online, and "aisles" helps you refine your search based on product-specific subcategories. When a shopper searches for "camera lens," for example, we'll show her some popular lenses, as well as offer the option to filter her searches by relevant criteria like "maximum aperture."
Lastly, we've launched a new version of our popular Google Shopper application for Android - version 1.3 includes search filters like "price" and "brand" to help shoppers easily find the right product. You can learn more about Google Shopper 1.3 at the Google Mobile Blog.

We hope these launches make holiday shopping a little easier - online and offline.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Getting Your Product Data Ready for the Holidays

Vivek Tata — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:40:00 +0000

As the holidays approach, some products are flying off the shelves, and a continuous cycle of sales and promotions means that prices change frequently. Now is a good time to ensure that you're submitting accurate data in your feed, particularly in regards to attributes like "price" and "quantity" which are more variable during the holidays. Otherwise, shoppers might overlook your product offer because of an inaccurate price, or click on a listing only to find that you no longer have the item in stock - a frustrating experience for merchant and user alike. Here are two tips to make sure you're set for the holidays:

Tip #1: Update your feed with frequent inventory information. Make sure that the "Quantity" attribute in your feed matches the inventory levels on your site. A Zero ("0") quantity must be explicitly specified (blank does not equal zero), and indicates the store typically carries the product but is temporarily out of stock. Learn more about the "Quantity" attribute on our feed specification.
Tip #2: Ensure that all prices that appear in your data feed match the prices that appear on your website. For items sold in bulk quantities the price for the lowest purchasable number of items must be defined in this attribute (not the per unit price) as described in our policies. Our feed specification has more details about the "Price" attribute.

To give our users the best experience possible, we'll continue to take action against inaccurate listings and products that violate our policies. If you receive any email messages with the subject "Problems with your items on Google Product Search," please correct your feed immediately to avoid your account being suspended or disabled. If you're interested in learning about additional ways to improve your data feed, please visit our help center.

Posted by Chris Coyoli, Shopping Partner Manager, Google Product Search

Shipping Costs Available for UK Shoppers

Vivek Tata — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:46:00 +0000

As we approach the holidays, shoppers are looking for the perfect gifts for friends and family. When they have picked a product and are trying to decide where to purchase, knowing how much the shipping might cost helps them make that choice. In September, we announced that we were beginning to accept shipping cost information from merchants in the UK. Today, we have begun to expose that information to shoppers. If you are not yet providing shipping cost information, there are two ways to do it: you can set account-level values in your Merchant Center account, and you can include shipping costs for specific items in your data feed (which will override the account-level values). We urge you to include these costs in your Merchant Center account and data feed as soon as possible, so holiday shoppers can take advantage of this information.

Posted by Emma Burrows, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Google Shopping Now Available in Japan

Vivek Tata — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:37:00 +0000

This week, we announced the launch of Google Commerce Search and Google Shopping in Japan. If you'd like to make your items available to Japanese users, you can register a feed for Japan, with prices in Yen. Japanese speakers can learn more about this launch on the Google Japan blog.

Posted by Kosuke Suzuki, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Google Shopping Launches in France

Vivek Tata — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:22:00 +0000

We are excited to announce that we have launched Google Product Search as Google Shopping in France. Merchants who would like to make their products searchable to French users can now create a new French data feed in the Google Merchant Center.

If you’re already submitting your items to Google Merchant Center, you now have the option to select France from the target country dropdown when registering your feed. Please make sure that your data feed complies to the Google Product Search requirements for France. Your products will then appear on Google Shopping France and may be displayed in ‘Shopping results’ on Google.fr pages.

Posted by Robin Zueger, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Treat Your Site Search to to Some Customization this Halloween

Vivek Tata — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:49:00 +0000

(Cross posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

If you’ve been to a grocery store or even switched on your television this week, you may have noticed that Halloween is here – a telltale sign that the holiday season is approaching. And since holidays mean more shopping, here at Google our Commerce Search team has been working very hard to help get your retail websites ready for the business boom.

For most retail businesses the holiday season can be the busiest time of the year, and we want to help you get excited about it. We’ve been listening to your feedback and noticed that many of you desire a greater ability to customize your site search so that it’s exactly the way you want it. Today we are pleased announce that we are giving you your holiday gift early, and in the form of three new customization features.

1. Control over auto-completions. Query auto-completion leverages the machine learning of Google to automatically provide a relevant list of suggestions every time a user types a search query on your site. While this eliminates the need for manual entry of query suggestions, many of you still wanted administrative control.

With this feature, users can now control their auto-completions. Let’s say you are an online candy reseller and typing “ch” triggers “cherry cough drops” and not “chocolate covered almonds,” your most popular treat.

You can add “cherry cough drops” to your list of exclusions and “chocolate covered almonds” to your list of inclusions to display the auto-completions you prefer. For more extensive customization, you can even upload inclusions and exclusions in bulk, so you don’t have to enter the query customizations line by line.

2. Easier Facets. We have made it easier to build navigation features by auto-populating the options based on what we know about your specified attribute. So, if you want to build a facet around “shirts,” options for price, color, size, and any of your own particulars will be listed automatically. This makes it simple to customize search results.

3. Improved Documentation. Now you can find information about how to customize your search with improved documentation and code samples. These can be found at the GCS code page.

These new features can be activated today by visiting your GCS control panel, and we hope that while you’re eating Halloween treats you’ll utilize them to prepare your e-commerce site for the holiday rush. If you are new to Google Commerce Search, visit google.com/commercesearch for more information or to sign-up now.

Posted by Andy Herrman, Software Engineer and Salmaan Rashid, Senior Technical Solutions Engineer, Google Commerce Search

Launched Today: Advanced Usage Settings for Greater Control Over Your Feeds

Vivek Tata — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:02:00 +0000

When we launched the Google Merchant Center, our goal was to create a central place for merchants to upload and manage their product listings. Merchants are now using their Merchant Center data to get qualified traffic from Google Product Search, improve their on-site search with Google Commerce Search, and enrich their AdWords campaigns with product extensions.

Today, in order to give merchants more control over which of their feeds and items appear in these destinations, we’re launching some advanced feed usage settings in the Merchant Center. For merchants who are only using Google Product Search, there is no need to change any settings; those who are using either Google Commerce Search or product-based ads formats can use the new "Set advanced feed usage settings" link within the Data Feeds tab to exclude or include a feed for a particular destination. For item-level control, merchants can use the new "exclude destination" attribute in their feed. To find out more about these changes, see this article in our Help Center.

Posted by Emma Burrows, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Working With Bizrate for Trusted Seller Reviews and Ratings

Vivek Tata — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:19:00 +0000

When I was preparing to move to London a few months ago, I ended up doing a lot of shopping online for the items I knew I'd need - from a camera for capturing memories and an umbrella for the infamous drizzle to music that would go well with the cloudy skies! One of the tools I used to help me pick the online retailers I bought from were Google seller ratings and reviews. We get these reviews and ratings by aggregating consumer feedback from across the web.

Of course, for both shoppers and merchants, it's important that merchant reviews are coming from real users who've completed transactions at the online stores they're reviewing. That's why we're excited to announce our agreement with Bizrate Insights in the US, UK and Germany. The Insights program gets reviews from shoppers who have actually completed a transaction on your site, which means that it's content you can trust to help you improve and promote your customer experience. Bizrate ratings have been an important component of our seller ratings, and we'll now be able to include the full text of the review, so shoppers can get the full picture before they buy. Bizrate Insights is free; for more information on how to participate, visit their site.

Posted by Kinnari Jhaveri, Strategic Partnerships

Introducing Merchant Center Shipping Settings Internationally

Vivek Tata — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 21:05:00 +0000

When online shoppers are ready to buy a product, estimated shipping costs can help them decide where they want to purchase. Shipping cost estimation is one of the features most commonly requested by Google Product Search users, and it offers merchants who offer free or low-cost shipping a way to attract more customers. Today, I’m happy to announce that merchants in the UK and Germany can now submit shipping information in two complementary ways. You can:

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

2. Include values for the shipping attribute in your data feeds. These values will override any account-level default values that you have set for that item.
Where possible we recommend using both settings: create a default shipping method on the account level and add the item-level shipping attribute for products with more detailed information.

We will be making shipping cost information available to UK users in the near future (it’s already live in Germany), so we strongly recommend adding this data to your account and your feed soon.

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

Posted by Emma Burrows, Product Manager, Google Product Search

An Update on Unique Identifiers in the US

Vivek Tata — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Over the past two months, we've posted about our plans to change the way we display results to help users access all the information we have on a product from one "product page." This week, we have begun to make these changes in the United States. Product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories that are submitted without Unique Product Identifiers may not be listed, or may appear in a lower position in the results. We recommend checking the Data Quality tab in your Merchant Center account to see examples of products which may have missing or incorrect identifiers, and as always you can refer to our Help Center for more information.

Posted by Jia Sheng, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Tell the World What You Have In Stock With Google Local Shopping

Vivek Tata — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:39:00 +0000

One weekday evening a few weeks before our son was born, my wife commissioned me to find a box of raspberry red leaf tea for the delivery. I promptly drove to the nearest grocery store, which has an awe-inspiring wall of tea. After diligently scanning the wall and not finding the tea, I began to wonder if it even existed. Was the similarly-labeled raspberry tea the same thing? What about red leaf tea? Stumped, I pulled out my phone and looked up "raspberry red leaf tea" on Google. Beneath the "Shopping results," I saw a red map marker for a nearby Vitamin Shoppe and a link, "In stock nearby," next to a picture of Alvita Raspberry Red Leaf Tea. I hopped back in the car, and 15 minutes later had accomplished my mission. Two weeks later, my wife accomplished her much more important mission and we welcomed Benjamin, a healthy and happy baby boy, to our family.

Since we announced the Local Shopping inventory beta some months ago, we have received great user feedback on the feature, and retailers have been clamoring to take part. Today, we’re making public our help documentation for participation. Please take a moment to review those documents, and if you’re interested, fill out the local shopping interest form. While we won’t be able to accept all retailers who apply, we will keep your name on file if we can’t take you at this time. Please note that excellent Product Search data quality is a prerequisite for participation, so make sure that you are submitting an accurate and complete data feed, including unique product identifiers. Additionally, to take part you’ll need to have your stores listed on Google Places, so make sure you have submitted and verified your store listings.

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

A Friendly Reminder on Unique Product Identifiers

Vivek Tata — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:41:00 +0000

As we announced a few weeks ago, product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories from US merchants may not appear in Product Search if your data feed does not include the relevant unique product identifiers (UPIs), such as MPN, Brand, GTIN/UPC/EAN or ISBN. We plan on making this change towards the end of this month in the US, so we urge all merchants who sell items in those three categories to begin including these identifiers wherever possible to avoid losing traffic from Product Search.

In the case of products which don't have certain unique identifiers, we will have an exception-request process in place when we make the change. These requests will be reviewed after submission. Please note that if some merchants are able to include unique identifiers for a given product, we may not list submissions for that product from merchants who do not include the relevant identifiers.

Posted by Jia Sheng, Product Manager, Google Product Search

A New Way to Get More Clicks from Product Search

Vivek Tata — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:23:00 +0000

We are excited to announce a new advertising format that will help you use your data feed to get even more traffic from Google Product Search. This new format is based on the popular product extensions on Google.com, with a slight difference: on Product Search, users will see your products and prices without having to click on a "plusbox" to expand the ad.

These ads are a great opportunity to market the breadth of your product catalog and highlight any promotional messages directly to conversion-ready shoppers on Google Product Search. To take advantage of this format, make sure your product extensions ad campaigns are being served on "search partner" sites. If you're not already an AdWords advertiser, sign up today.

Posted by Andrew Poon, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Adding PowerReviews to the Google Product Reviews Program

Vivek Tata — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:23:00 +0000

In April, we launched the Google Product Reviews Program to give shoppers on Google easy access to product reviews and user ratings from participating retailers. Today, we're pleased to announce that we will be adding PowerReviews, a leading provider of customer reviews, as a partner to this program. Clients of PowerReviews who are interested in submitting full-length product reviews to Google should contact PowerReviews to learn more about how they can participate. For more information, please see the PowerReviews press release about our partnership and this page about the Product Reviews Program.

Posted by Brian Lam, Strategic Partnerships

Improving the Product Search Experience

Vivek Tata — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:58:00 +0000

Over the past year, we’ve launched a number of exciting features on Google Product Search. Users can now access YouTube videos, product reviews, and other information from a single page about a product - what we call a “product page.” (For example, see this product page for a Canon Rebel camera). Users appreciate this information, and we want to make sure your product offers are included on these product pages. To do this, we’ll need your help - starting in late August, product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories from US merchants may not appear in Product Search if your data feed does not include the necessary unique product identifiers, such as MPN, Brand, GTIN/UPC/EAN or ISBN. We will make similar changes to Product Search in the UK and Germany at a later date.

These attributes will not be required for your feed to process correctly, so any product-based ad format will continue to show and product offers in other categories will continue to be listed on Google Product Search. However, to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible, for as many categories as you can get this data. You can find unique product identifier information on Product Search product pages, under the “technical specifications” section for Electronics items, the “Tracks” or “Details” section for Media, and the “Overview” section for books.

For more details, including what specific identifiers you should include for each category of item, please see our Help Center.

Posted by Jia Sheng, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Update, July 23: For merchants in the UK and Germany, the changes mentioned above will occur on a different schedule from the US, and will begin with items in the Electronics category. Starting in the first months of 2011, listings for Electronics items in the UK and Germany that do not include appropriate unique product identifiers may not appear on Google Product Search. For these items, please include at least two of the following identifiers: MPN, EAN, Brand.

Announcing Google Commerce Search 2.0

Vivek Tata — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Launched earlier today in the US and UK, Google Commerce Search 2.0 is now available for online retailers looking to optimize their website search experience and overall site usability. With new features including a full merchandising dashboard, simple ranking rules, time-based promotions, and query autocompletion, Google Commerce Search is even more powerful and easy to deploy than before.

To learn more about how improving the website search tool can increase conversions and sales for your retail clients, be sure to sign up for an upcoming webinar on June 23rd. If you're unable to make it, you can learn more and request a demo at google.com/commercesearch.

Posted by Eric Larson and Salmaan Rashid, Enterprise team

Help Us Improve Your Google Merchant Center Experience

Vivek Tata — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:13:00 +0000

How can we improve your Merchant Center experience? What features would you like to see added, and how could we make it easier to manage your product data? Starting this week, we'll be kicking off a discussion thread on our help forum in the "Tips and Suggestions" category. Each week's thread will focus on a different part of the Merchant Center, and one of our team members will post a response to your comments at the end of the week. We'll use your feedback to help guide our product development.

Thanks for participating in Google Product Search, and we look forward to getting your feedback.

Posted by Rakesh Gurbani, Google Merchant Center Team

Maintaining URL Claim Status for the Google Merchant Center

Google Data — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:06:00 +0000

As we announced last month, we are now requiring all merchants to have both verified and claimed their URLs in order to submit a product feed to Google. If you haven't yet completed this process, we urge you to do so as soon as possible. If you have, please make sure not to remove the file or metatag you added to your website as part of the verification process. If that file is removed, you will lose your "verified" status and will need to go through the verification and claiming process again.

Posted by Sagar Kamdar, Product Manager, Google Product Search

A Fresh Coat of Paint for the Google Merchant Center

Google Data — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:48:00 +0000

Today, we're rolling out a few changes that will make the Google Merchant Center easier to use. We've simplified navigation between sections and we've merged the "Active" and "Inactive" product pages into one "Products" page. Additionally, we've added the ability to search for a specific product by product ID on this "Products" page, making it easy to zero in on any of your products. Lastly, we've made some minor stylistic and textual changes, like changing the term "Published" to the more descriptive "Searchable." Log in to your account to check out these changes, and ask any questions you have in the help forum.

Posted by Claudia Ciorascu, Software Engineer, Google Merchant Center

Reminder: Verify & Claim Your URL

Google Data — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:46:00 +0000

Tomorrow, May 18th, is the deadline for US-based merchants to verify & claim their URLs for the Google Merchant Center. After May 18th, data feeds uploaded for URLs that have not been verified and claimed will be disapproved.

There are two steps to verify and claim your URL:

1). First, you will first need to verify your Google Merchant Center login email as a site owner by following the instructions at the Google Webmaster Tools Help Center. If you or someone else from your company has already verified your site using a different email address, you can add your Google Merchant Center login as a site owner by following these directions.

2). Once your Google Merchant Center login is listed as a site owner for your domain in Webmaster Tools, sign in to the Google Merchant Center and click the “Claim this URL” link on your General Settings page. When the URL status says "claimed," you have completed the process successfully.

For more information, you can visit our Help Center article on verification and claiming.

Posted by Sagar Kamdar, Product Manager, Google Product Search

“Springing” into a New Shopping Season with Google

Google Data — Wed, 05 May 2010 23:38:00 +0000

(Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

It’s that time of year again. Brick-and-mortar stores are clearing out the sweaters and snow-mobiles and revamping window displays with sandals and scuba gear. We know that online retailers are painstakingly updating their virtual window space as well and (perhaps even more importantly) are thinking hard about how new technologies can bring a fresh edge to their website – and the bottom line.

To kick off the season, we’re extending an invitation to a live webcast on Friday, May 14 presented by Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager for Google Commerce Search. We’ll cover all the basics of what makes good search on e-commerce sites, how improving search speed and usability can help improve customer satisfaction and increase sales, and how top online retailers have made the switch.

Join us to learn more – and bring your questions!

Google Commerce Search – Basics & Beyond
Friday, May 14, 2010
10:00 a.m. PDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT / GMT 06:00
Register here.

Posted by Anna Bishop, Enterprise Search Marketing Team

Announcing the Google Product Reviews Program

Google Data — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:13:00 +0000

The web has made it easy to make decisions: when I’m going out to eat, I can easily check to see what people thought of that hot new restaurant, and when I’m about to buy a new digital camera for my upcoming trip to Portugal, I can read through dozens of reviews to help me make the best choice.

User reviews and ratings give ordinary consumers a voice, and are particularly important when a prospective customer can’t go into a physical store to ask questions or play with the product. That’s why, at today’s Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit, Product Director Sameer Samat announced the Google Product Reviews Program. Through the program, we will begin featuring full-length product reviews and user ratings from participating retailers and manufacturers wherever it will help users with their shopping, including in our search results and advertising programs. On Google Product Search, for example, we’ll feature your logo alongside representative reviews from your site, increasing brand exposure for your web store at a key point in the conversion process.

To kick off this program, we’ll be working with Bazaarvoice, a leader in the user reviews space. If you’re a Bazaarvoice client, all you need to do to participate is to let Bazaarvoice know you’re interested in submitting your reviews to Google, and to make sure you’ve specified your canonical URLs for products in your web store. If you’re not a Bazaarvoice client, hold tight - we hope to add additional partners, as well as a self-submission model, soon. For more information about the program, please go here.

Posted by Kinnari Jhaveri, Strategic Partnerships

Verify and Claim Your Website URL in Merchant Center

Google Data — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Today we’re introducing a change to Google Merchant Center requirements to help ensure that you’re the only one submitting product listings for your site.

You will now need to verify yourself as the owner of the site and then claim the URL in order to submit product listings for that site. This requires two separate steps:

Verify yourself as site owner by following the instructions at Google Webmaster Tools.
Once your site is verified, sign in to your Google Merchant Center account and click the “Claim this URL” link on your General Settings page.

It’s a small inconvenience that you’ll have to go through once, but it’s important to make sure you’re the only one authorized to upload product listings for your site.

Existing Merchant Center users need to verify and claim their URLs by May 18th. After that, this requirement will become mandatory and product listings for non-verified or non-claimed URLs will be disapproved. New Merchant Center users will be prompted to do this when they begin the sign-up process.

Our Help Center article has more information on how to go about verifying and claiming your website URL.

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Upcoming Webinar: How Discount Office Items Increased Revenue 6% by Switching to Google Commerce Search

Google Data — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:50:00 +0000

In late 2009, the Enterprise team here at Google launched a new tool, Google Commerce Search, to help online retailers improve site usability and raise conversions. We're excited to see results and metrics coming in that show the impact this new product is having. One company, DiscountOfficeItems.com, decided to switch to Google Commerce Search from a sluggish homegrown solution and almost immediately saw sizable lifts in revenue, traffic, transactions, and average order size.

Tim Horton, CEO, will join Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager at Google Enterprise on a live webcast Thursday, March 4 at 10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST to share his experience and answer questions about their decision to switch to Google Commerce Search.

You can read more from Tim Horton on the Google Enterprise blog. Event details:

How Discount Office Items Increased Revenue 6% by Switching to Google Commerce Search
Thursday, March 4, 2010
10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST

We hope you'll join us for this live event!

Posted by Anna Bishop, Enterprise Search team

Make Your Results Look Better on Google.com

Google Data — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:01:00 +0000

At Google, we've found that users are more likely to click on short URLs in the search results than on longer ones. However, if your site is like most, there are multiple URLs that will take users to the same product page, including some that are longer because they include tracking information, category navigation, or other parameters. For example, both

http://www.example.com/product?id=388

and

http://www.example.com/product?id=388&category=748&sessionId=4754379899

might lead to the same product page. When Googlebot crawls a site, it's not unusual for it to find several URLs for the same page. And it's not always clear which of those should be displayed in the search results on Google.com.

There's actually a way for you to tell search engines which URL you'd prefer they use. Your webmaster can do this with a tag. For example, if you wanted to specify the shorter URL above, you could just have the following added to the section at the top of your page:

For more information on how to specify your canonical, check out our canonical URLs post on the Webmaster Central Blog.

The canonical URL you specify will indicate your preference for Google.com search results, but for Product Search, Product Listing Ads, and AdWords product extensions we'll continue to use the URLs you specify in your feeds or through the API. That means that if you're submitting URLs with tracking parameters, they will continue to work.

As always, send any questions our way in the help forum.

Posted by Robin Zueger, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Introducing Product Extensions for AdWords

Google Data — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:13:00 +0000

During this holiday season, you may be looking for new ways to reach users searching for products on Google.com. If you're an AdWords advertiser, you may be interested in a new feature called product extensions that allows you to highlight your Merchant Center offers directly within your existing text ads. Using product extensions, you can show the images, titles, and prices of relevant products from your Google Merchant Center account. These offers will appear in a plusbox beneath your standard text ad which users can expand directly on the search results page.

As of last week, Adwords product extensions are available to all U.S. advertisers. To learn more about product extensions you can read the Inside AdWords announcement or visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Google Product Search on the Official Google Blog

Google Data — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:16:00 +0000

Earlier today, Jeff and Sameer from the Product Search team shared some holiday shopping updates on the Official Google Blog. Check out their post to see a recap of some of the work we've been doing over the past few months, including local store locations, video product reviews, and our new gallery view, among others.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search