LoveYourFeed.com

Google recently released Product Extension Ads, also known as Ad Extensions for AdWords. This new feature is available to merchants using Google AdWords and Google Product Search. Within your Google Merchant Center account, you can connect your AdWords account to use product information to create extension ads. AdWords will use your Google Base/Product Search feed to accomplish this.

It’s important to note that you may be able to obtain multiple links to your products on one of these results pages. You can have an organic listing, Product Extension Ad links, and Google Product Search results under the “Shopping results for…” section which can increase the number of chances you’ll get a visitor to your website.

For those who don’t what an Extension Ad looks like, check out these results.

Search “Fein Multimaster” with results from AllProTools/AllProFein

Search “Delta 470″ with results from PlumberSurplus.com. Note that their Google Checkout badge is showing as well, with a current $5 off orders of $30 or more.

Once you add your AdWords account id to your Google Merchant Center account, you can then go add new keywords campaigns that utilize this data. To learn more about how to create these ads visit AdWords Help Center.

Many merchants have asked how they establish seller ratings for the listings on Google Product Search so I thought I’d take a moment to explain.

Merchant seller ratings on Google Product Search are collected from numerous sources including Epinions, Google Checkout, Mr. Rebates, Pricegrabber, ResellerRatings, Bizrate/Shopzilla, and a few others. These sites collect ratings via post order surveys, or email follow ups, or open contribution by shoppers.  Take note that some of the other shopping engines ratings will be shared with Google so it makes sense to implement the post checkout pop up surveys. If you offer Google Checkout then you’re in luck because becuase Google will send out an email to customers automatically to share their rate their experience.

Based on our experience, there is no setting that can be configured, or request that can be made to get your reviews populated. It just takes time for Google to collect and gather reviews from these 3rd party sources and then display them. Even if Google has several ratings collected, that may not be enough to get them displayed right away and you’ll have to wait until mass updates are made to their system.  This is from Google Checkout Merchant Help section about ratings and reviews, “Google Checkout reviews are also displayed on Google Product Search results. Please note, reviews displayed here aren’t added in real-time. As a result, you may notice a delay between receiving a new review and its addition to your rating in Google Product Search results.” I also found another help article mentioning “New reviews can take up to ten days to appear in Product Search.”

Towards the end of August, Google Base asked that merchants begin sending higher quality images. This is a great move forward for the user (shopper) experience when they can see higher resolution, larger images instead of tiny thumbnail sized ones. I wanted to take a moment to remind merchants that while images for Google Base may be optional, you should ALWAYS include them. Product images are also a field that is required with other comparison shopping engines, so if you are only on Google Product Search and want to be on Pricegrabber, Shopzilla, or Amazon Product Ads and don’t have images you won’t be able to list. Google is asking that images be at least 300×300 pixels, but we also suggest that you don’t submit images that are insanely large dimensions and file sizes. As for the file size, we recommend common file types such as .jpg or .gif. Formats such as .png or .tiff are larger in file size. The reason you want to keep file size down, is that it consumes your server bandwith when the shopping engines are showing your images. Remember that while on the comparison shopping engines this is the shopper’s first exposure to your website and the products you sell. If you have poor or no images, the shopper is likely to skip your listening and choose a competitor’s product.

If you want more resources about product images check out the following links:

• Get Elastic – How Top Retailers Show Product Images
• GrokDotCom – Changing Your Product Image Can Boost Sales by 147%
• Practical eCommerce – Optimizing Your Product Images

Back in late July, Google announced that they would be retiring the “one at a time” listing feature for Google Base listings and require items to be submitted via data feeds or an API. If you don’t know what API stands for then chances are it’s not for you. This is inherently going to cause a few issues for some merchants who have managed their small number of products using the one at a time feature. Their items will eventually expire and they’ll be forced to submit a feed. Don’t freak out because I said data feed. Data feeds don’t have to be scary like Al Pacino’s little friend in Scarface. Data feeds don’t have to be overwhelming either. Infact they can be very valuable to your ecommerce website and we suggest that you make the most of the other shopping engines and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

If you need more information on building a data feed for just Google and you don’t have many products and zero budget for help then we recommend you look at the Google Base Help section http://base.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=2922. If you have lots of products, want to list on more than just Google Product Search, and get a whole lot more like categorization and performance tracking, then contact SingleFeed at info ‘at’ singlefeed.com to see how we can help.

What does it mean when you see “Published, Searchable Soon” in your Google Base account? 

This question crops up a lot… and for good reason. Your Google Base account doesn’t do a good job of telling you what’s going on here. When you see this message it means that your most recently uploaded Google Base feed is being indexed for search on Google Base. What it neglects to underscore is the fact that your previously uploaded (penultimate) feed IS still searchable on Google Base. So if you see “Published, Searchable soon”, your items (from the previously processed feed) are still live and searchable on Google Base. 

Sometimes merchants complain that their feed is in a perpetual state of “Published, searchable soon”. Their concern is that if their items are in this state constantly, they are never searchable on Base. If you see this message continually, i.e. for more than 24 hours at a time, it is likely because you upload your feed on a daily basis and: 

1) You have a very large feed (50,000+ items) and/or 

2) Google is experiencing slowdowns with feed processing. 

If you upload a feed on a daily basis, either of the above points could cause your Google Base account to perpetually display the “Published, Searchable Soon” message as Google’s feed processing overlaps into your upload schedule. Some merchants first reaction is to simply stop uploading their feed daily. This is not advisable for a couple of reasons. First, as mentioned previously, even with your current feed in this “Published, Searchable Soon” state, your previously uploaded feed is still searchable, so there’s no reason to stop delivering your feed daily. Second, by sending Google base your feed on a daily basis, you’re allowing Google to make sure your data is fresh. 

As a Google Product Search Approved Partner, SingleFeed recognizes that daily feed submission is optimal.