Video: Product Search for Webmasters

Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 3:05 PM

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

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

Posted by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Reminder: Submit Your Store Locations

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 5:50 PM

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

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

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

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

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

New Data Feed Interface Improvements

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 1:42 PM

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

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

Posted by Chris Azalde, Google Base Support

Local Business Information and Store Locations

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 1:09 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Condition Attribute Becoming Required for Google Product Search

Tuesday, June 02, 2009 at 10:30 AM

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

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

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

English - United States

English - United Kingdom

Deutsch - Deutschland

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

New Base Terms of Service

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 1:21 PM

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

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

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Base

Help mobile users find your offers

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 12:01 PM

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

Posted by Vivek Tata, Marketing Manager, Google Product Search