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We get asked all the time, “How do I find my products on Google Shopping?” Well its not difficult to determine at all. Simply visit www.google.com/products and then type in “site:”  but leave off the quotes, and add your domain or store url.

Example- site:www.mydomain.com

You can also try another example if you are feeling adventurous…

If you know your Google Base ID, aka Google Merchant Center account number (found at the upper left of your Google Merchant Center account). Once you copy this number, add it to the following string “http://www.google.com/products?authorid=”

Related to my last post about Using Google Product Extension Ads, I’ve already been asked several times what feed goes where and what ads belong to what Google services.  Brian Smith, who writes ComparisonEngines.com wrote a good post explaining The Importance of the Google Merchant Center Data Feed which I recommend you read for further clarification.

Below is a real life example of a Google search results page for the keyword “dog training collar”.

The Google Product Search listings come from your data feed that is submitted to your Google Merchant Center account (formerly called Google Base). There is no fee associated with clicks on these links (or the underlying shopping pages).

The Google Affiliate Network listings come from you guessed it, the Google Affiliate Network (formerly Performics). Merchants cannot control these ads, as Google is the publisher and is earning a fee from the advertiser.

The Google Product Extension ads (as covered in my previous post) are created by connecting your AdWords account with your Google Merchant Center account.

If you’re still confused, comment below and I’ll help answer your question.

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.”