Back in November of 2006, I wrote about Google Base allowing submitters to specify AdWords ads as attributes. Well, according to an email posted in the Google Base Help Group, that’s no longer the case:

Unfortunately, the decision has been made to discontinue the feature to submit AdWords ads through Google Base, so the bug will not be fixed. I apologize for any inconvenience this causes you. However, we found that this feature wasn’t giving advertisers the return on investment that they have come to expect from Google AdWords. In an effort to keep the best interest of our advertisers in mind, we’ve decided to discontinue this feature.

If you’re submitting AdWords ads in your Google Base feed, make sure to delete those attributes and create your ads through Google AdWords.

Google Base sent emails to merchants yesterday asking everyone to start submitting Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPN), Universal Product Codes (UPC), and International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN).

Google Base also posted the requirements on the Google Base blog and there are a couple conversations on the topic in Google Groups.
These requirements aren’t exactly ‘new’ as companies that concentrate on data feed management and data feed optimization, like SingleFeed, have always stressed the importance of these unique identifiers. Including MPNs and UPCs allows Google Base to SKU up or normalize their listings - something I’ve long criticized them for not doing. So I think this change is a good thing for consumers and for merchants.

However, the problem is that not all merchants know their MPNs and UPCs (I think most booksellers know their ISBNs). Because of this, there are plenty of merchants who are worried about their rankings as the Google Base blog post said ‘Not including accurate values for these fields can have a negative effect on the ranking of your items.’

Here’s my advice. Do your best to include these unique identifiers in your product feed, but do not make these numbers up. If you’re selling handmade goods, you will not have MPNs or UPCs. That’s actually ok. If you’re buying your inventory from a distributor/supplier and that product has a real manufacturer, though, you can get MPNs and UPCs. It’s going to take work as not all distributors/suppliers are used to giving out this information, but you have to keep on them to do so.

If history is any indication, Google Base will not immediately kick you off for not having proper MPNs and UPCs. I still run across merchants that are doing fine with old Froogle feeds (not recommended!). But if Google Base and Google Product Search are important to your business, add these unique identifiers ASAP. Set realistic goals and follow through on this task by the end of the summer (or as I like to think of it, the beginning of holiday shopping season). If you don’t, your competitors will, and you’ll start to feel the pain of lost traffic and sales from Google Base/Google Product Search.

If you’re selling any eco-friendly products, you might want to consider submitting to PriceGrabber if you’re not doing so already.  PriceGrabber just launched ShopGreen which features eco-friendly products - think biodegradable, organic, energy efficient, etc.

If you’re already submitting to PriceGrabber, your products should automatically be included in the shopping section…basically the editor of the section is just filtering the products by Brand.  If you don’t see your products listed, but believe they fit PriceGrabber’s guidelines, email ’shopgreen at pricegrabber dot com’.