We all know that Google Base supports many different types of listings: products, jobs, recipes, travel packages, reviews, vehicles, housing, etc… Google refers to these as item types (not to be confused with the more specific product type). In true Google fashion, you can even create a custom item type. Users can filter their search results on Base by item type and Google probably considers it as a ranking factor, just like any other attribute. Also, only listings with item type “products” will appear on Google Product Search. For all these reasons, it is important to make sure you have the correct item type selected. We work closely with Miguel Salcido over at eVisibility and recently noticed that the bulk upload for one of his clients, costume e-tailer Star Costumes, was listed under the incorrect item type. We switched this to “products” on Oct 16 and, well, the numbers speak for themselves:
Leads per Day from Google Base (for Star Costumes):
I’ve had similar experience with the product type. While Google encourages you to create your own, I’ve found using the established ones will provide similarly large jumps in traffic.
Comment by Drew — November 16, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Yeah, thanks Colin! What happened was that the client had their own Base account already setup because he was using the Froogle export feature that many shopping carts offer. So I did not realize this and in switching his shopping cart feed to a SingleFeed I never noticed that the merchant had setup the wrong Item Type.
But that is the beauty of having a service like SingleFeed! Because although I do a good job of optimizing my feeds there are many issues that can arise from the shopping engines themselves. Thanks Guys!
Comment by Miguel Salcido — November 16, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
How much of that bump would you attribute to the demand for costumes 15 days before Halloween?
Comment by Sandy Newman — November 19, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
Great question Sandy! That was something I considered, as well. Maybe some costume/Halloween related etailers can comment, but I believe that the bump for those guys starts around the beginning of October. While traffic would definitely remain strong, and potentially grow, over those last two weeks, the overwhelming majority of the bump displayed here (from almost nothing to 1000+ leads per day) I would think is definitely due to the item type issue.
Comment by Colin Murphy — November 20, 2007 @ 4:59 pm