Posted on July 21, 2011 by John Rampton in Innovative Ideas, local marketing resources
Google put up some new rules for Google Merchant Center which many of you should know about if you have read my previous posts. Google will officially be enforcing the new rules as of September 22, 2011. This will be a big day for many of you because it will be the day that many people get banned and their Google Merchant Center account suspended by Google. If any of you have had this happen is horrible and you really can’t get ahold of anyone over at Google. Ghttp://www.maplenorth.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpreat company but unless you know someone or have been a client for a long time, it’ll take a while to get your account back.
First, you can read their updated Feed Specification and Policies and update your product information accordingly to ensure your products will continue to appear on Google Product Search.
Basic Google Merchant Center Guidelines:
- Basic Product Information: Attributes to describe the basic information about your products, such as title, description and type of product.
- Availability & Price: Attributes to specify the availability and prices of your listings. (this is a new one and required)
- Unique Product Identifiers: Attributes to ensure your products appear on the right product page, such as brands, UPCs, and EANs.
- Apparel Products: Attributes to describe apparel products, such as color or gender.
- Product Variants: Attributes to correctly describe variations of a product that only differ by color, material, pattern, or size.
- Tax & Shipping: How to include information to supply tax and cost of shipping information for your products.
- Nearby Stores (US & UK only): How to include information to show your physical stores in addition to your online store
- Loyalty Points (Japan only): Attributes to specify the loyalty points Google Shopping users gain when buying the item.
- Additional Attributes: Other attributes to describe your products.
This will be a small change for most and a fairly large change for clothing retailers. Now they will have to have a different product ID number for each size, color and a combination of the two. This is all a really good thing for all of us. It will keep spam off the internet and keep retailers that have crappy things off the Google merchant center sites!
