Google Enforcing New Requirements - Is Your Google Feed Ready?

As of June 20th Google Product Search Merchants will have to provide unique identifiers for products in all categories except for apparel and one-of-a-kind items.

To determine if your data is ready, login to your Google Merchant account and check your 'Data Quality' to see if you currently have Unique Product Identifier warnings, and make adjustments as needed.

Warnings could turn into errors on June 20th and those products will not be displayed.

Apparel & Accessories - If your items fall into the Apparel & Accessories category, you will be exempt, although it is still encouraged to provide a Brand/Manufacturer and the Google Product Type to ensure proper placement. Apparel & Accessories includes these categories:

• Clothing
• Clothing Accessories
• Costumes
• Jewelry
• Jewelry Accessories
• Shoe Accessories
• Shoes
• Watch Accessories
• Watches
• Luggage & Bags ' Handbags

Exemptions - If your products are custom made or one-of-a-kind items, you will need to apply for an exemption from Google:

http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/request.py?contact_type=unique_id_exemption

How to Validate your Google Feed

The best way to determine if you are in compliance with Google's new requirements is to use GoDataFeed's new Google feed template as the validation tools and field attributes are built-in to ensure compliance.

You will need two of the three items for your products:

1. ACCURATE Brand information (you can use Manufacturer)

2. ACCURATE Manufacturer Product Numbers (MPN) as assigned by the Manufacturer - and that they are assigned to the CORRECT products.

3. or ACCURATE UPC Codes as assigned by the Manufacturer - 12 to 14 digit codes (or ISBNs for books)

Google uses the above information to match your products against a standard database of products and will show their image, their title and descriptions. If the information you provide is inaccurate then it will show up incorrect in Google or may not get submitted at all.

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

Shipping and Tax Information Requirements- Google is also extending the previous June 6th deadline until September 1, to allow Merchants more time to modify their data. They are also permitting estimates for tax/shipping information. This rule applies to Google US, UK, France and Germany feeds.

Reminder: June Rate Card Changes for Several Top CSEs

What you need to know about Rate Card changes at Amazon Product Ads, Become, NexTag & Shopzilla

Plus Reminder: Google Enforcing Tax & Shipping Requirements June 6th

As a reminder, many of the top shopping channels are changing their rate cards- see below for details and links to their newest rate cards:

Amazon Product Ads

Amazon is increasing minimum bids in 36 categories, and decreasing it in 4, starting June 1st.

View Amazon Product Ads newest Rate Card

What do I need to do? They will automatically set bids to the new minimums on June 1, in Baby, Computers, Electronics, Health and Beauty, Home, Home Improvement, Office, Sports, and Toys. **If you do not want your bids to be set automatically** login to Seller Central account and look for the title "Minimum Bids in 36 Categories are changing" at the top of any page to manage your bidding

Become.com

Become.com will be increasing rate card minimums starting June 15th.

View Become's newest Rate Card.

What do I need to do? No action required. The change will take place on June 15th.

NexTag

Nextag will be making rate card changes starting June 1st in various categories including Clothing & Accessories, Shoes, Bed & Bath, Home Improvement, Appliances, Food & Wine, Prescription Drugs and more.

View NexTag's newest Rate Card

What do I need to do? No action required, changes will take place June 1; any bids already equal to or greater than minimum rates will not be impacted

Shopzilla

Shopzilla will be increasing rate card bids in several categories starting June 1st, decreasing rates in Appliances & DVDs and leaving some rates unchanged.

View Shopzilla's newest Rate Card

What do I need to do? Shopzilla will automatically adjust CPC bids June 1st; CPC bids that are above the minimum bid will not be changed.

PS: Google Reminder

Starting June 6th, Google will require you to include tax and shipping information.

What do I need to do? This pricing data can be set through either your Google Merchant Center or item-level through your datafeed. **After June 6th, merchants not including accurate tax and shipping information may cause Google to disapprove their feeds**

Short on Time? We can create the updated Google Product Search feed for you!

Simply open a support ticket, approve the one-time $99 feed setup charge, and we will update and optimize your Google Feed. We will add your existing custom filters, categorization and rules to your new Google feed.

Reminder: Google is Enforcing New Requirements Tomorrow, May 3rd

GoDataFeed has created a new Google Product Search feed template to reflect its upcoming feed requirements- which will go into effect tomorrow, May 3rd and June 6th, as posted in our blog last month.

We've created this new template to allow you to continue using the existing Google feed template, uninterrupted, while setting up the new one. If you haven't, we recommend you add your Unique Product Identifiers and migrate to the new template ASAP.

Google aims to help shoppers make better buying decisions with more accurate product and pricing information. GoDataFeed's new Google Product Search template will ensure you are adhering to Google's new requirements, maximizing all recommended fields and sending the most relevant, optimized feed to one of the Web's most important shopping engines.

If you are submitting your feed to Google Product Search, you will be required to include the following attributes in your feed:

Starting May 3rd (tomorrow)

Unique Product Identifiers- you'll need to include two out of the three unique product identifiers, such as Manufacturer Part Number (MPN), Brand or Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) in your datafeed (except for apparel or 'one-of-a-kind' items). This means you will now need 2 of the 3 below:

• Brand Name (or Manufacturer)
• MPNs -- these are usually Alpha Numeric codes assigned by the Manufacturer
• GTINs --these are product codes or other values associated with an individual product generally 12 to 14 numerical digits and assigned by the Manufacturer, which include UPC, EAN (in Europe), JAN (in Japan), and ISBN (10 digit codes for books)

Important Note: As stated on Google's Blog: 'Products without unique product identifiers may not be listed in Google Product Search, though the feed may not be disapproved.' So to avoid seeing a drop in traffic, make sure to use ACCURATE Unique IDs, UPCs or MPNs and a Brand name, as opposed to an internal merchant ID or SKU.

Starting June 6th

Tax & Shipping Data- you'll be required to include tax and shipping information. This pricing data can be set through either your Google Merchant Center or item-level through your datafeed. After June 6th, merchants not including accurate tax and shipping information may cause Google to disapprove their feeds.

Short on Time? We can create the updated Google Product Search feed for you!

Simply open a support ticket, approve the one-time $99 feed setup charge, and we will update and optimize your Google Feed. We will add your existing custom filters, categorization and rules to your new Google feed.

Learn more about Google Product Search's new Unique ID or Tax/Shipping requirements on Google's Merchant Blog

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