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

Monday, August 24, 2009 at 5:15 PM

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

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

Posted by Janna Salinas, Google Base Support

Shipping Costs in Product Search for Germany

Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 4:17 PM

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

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

Shipping Attribute now available for Germany

Wednesday, August 05, 2009 at 4:31 PM

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

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