Google Merchant Blog

Make Your Results Look Better on Google.com

2009-12-10T11:01:00.000-08:00

At Google, we've found that users are more likely to click on short URLs in the search results than on longer ones. However, if your site is like most, there are multiple URLs that will take users to the same product page, including some that are longer because they include tracking information, category navigation, or other parameters. For example, both

http://www.example.com/product?id=388

and

http://www.example.com/product?id=388&category=748&sessionId=4754379899

might lead to the same product page. When Googlebot crawls a site, it's not unusual for it to find several URLs for the same page. And it's not always clear which of those should be displayed in the search results on Google.com.

There's actually a way for you to tell search engines which URL you'd prefer they use. Your webmaster can do this with a <link rel="canonical"> tag. For example, if you wanted to specify the shorter URL above, you could just have the following added to the <head> section at the top of your page:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product?id=388">

For more information on how to specify your canonical, check out our canonical URLs post on the Webmaster Central Blog.

The canonical URL you specify will indicate your preference for Google.com search results, but for Product Search, Product Listing Ads, and AdWords product extensions we'll continue to use the URLs you specify in your feeds or through the API. That means that if you're submitting URLs with tracking parameters, they will continue to work.

As always, send any questions our way in the help forum.

Posted by Robin Zueger, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

Introducing Product Extensions for AdWords

2009-12-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

During this holiday season, you may be looking for new ways to reach users searching for products on Google.com. If you're an AdWords advertiser, you may be interested in a new feature called product extensions that allows you to highlight your Merchant Center offers directly within your existing text ads. Using product extensions, you can show the images, titles, and prices of relevant products from your Google Merchant Center account. These offers will appear in a plusbox beneath your standard text ad which users can expand directly on the search results page.

As of last week, Adwords product extensions are available to all U.S. advertisers. To learn more about product extensions you can read the Inside AdWords announcement or visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Google Product Search on the Official Google Blog

2009-11-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, Jeff and Sameer from the Product Search team shared some holiday shopping updates on the Official Google Blog. Check out their post to see a recap of some of the work we've been doing over the past few months, including local store locations, video product reviews, and our new gallery view, among others.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Google Base's Search Page Retired

2009-11-18T18:14:00.000-08:00

As we announced we'd be doing a few weeks ago, we've retired Google Base's separate search page today. We don't expect that this change will have much impact for data providers. However, if you have any questions about this or any other issue, check out the Google Merchant Center Forums to get help from the Base community and Google staff.

Update: We've corrected the publish date.

Posted by Robin Züger, Product Manager, Google Base

Announcing Our First Product Search Marketplace Partners: Etsy, eCrater, and eBid

2009-11-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

Today, we're excited to launch the Product Search Marketplace Partner program with our initial partner marketplaces eBid, eCrater, and Etsy. These marketplaces will submit product data for their sellers frequently and with all relevant attributes, so online shoppers get the up-to-date information they need to make smart buying decisions. Additionally, these marketplaces are a great solution for merchants who don't have a standalone retail website because they provide online visibility for the merchants' products. You can learn more about the program and our partners here.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manger, Google Product Search

Google Commerce Search: Google-Quality Search and Speed for Your Online Store

2009-11-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

Ever wanted to have Google quality search and ultra fast speed for your online store? Now you can. Today we are launching Google Commerce Search to provide the search on your retail website. Google Commerce Search also leverages the data feed that you submit through Google Merchant Center so you don't need to submit your data again to use Google Commerce Search for your online store.

Google Commerce Search (GCS) is a hosted, cloud-based offering that brings the relevancy, speed, and Google ease-of-use to e-commerce sites.

GCS also has a bunch of user-friendly features that make shopping on online stores easier, and search results more refined and accurate. Some of those features are:

speed – GCS leverages Google's ultra fast platform, because it's hosted, providing sub-second response times to users.

Google quality and ranking – GCS analyzes every item in our index using proprietary signals to determine its optimal placement in the result set, for more accurate query results for shoppers.

parametric search and sorting – GCS allows users to refine or sort results by category, price, brand, or other attribute; this is fully-functional parametric search for e-stores.

product boost and promotions – Retailers can boost the relevance of certain items, or highlight specific products during a sale, and cross-sell related products.

spell check, stemming and synonyms – By leveraging the larger Google engine, GCS can include these advanced search and synonym options, so the shopping experience is smoother for customers – even customers who mistype.

fast deployment and scale – Since this is a cloud-based offering, GCS can be deployed in days and, because it's hosted on the Google platform, retailers can scale to meet their higher-demand periods like the holidays without worrying about slowdowns or spikes.

Birkenstock USA has implemented Google Commerce Search on one of their online properties and found it has already made an impact on their business. "Google Commerce Search is improving user satisfaction -- bounce rates have decreased and we're seeing more return customers,' said Jeff Kilmer, COO, Birkenstock USA. 'The search results are ultra-fast, so customers more easily find the specific products they're looking for. We deployed Google Commerce Search quickly and easily, and we've seen dramatic conversion improvement since implementation. It has also meant a better shopping experience for our customers, which is critical given the holiday season rush."

For more information check out google.com/commercesearch.

Posted by Matthias Zenger, Max Loubser Google Commerce Search Team

Preparing for the Holidays with Google Product Search

2009-10-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, Google Product Search released some great new features for shoppers and merchants. Heading into the holiday season, we want to make sure you have all the information you need to maximize the impact of your data feeds. Here's a checklist to make sure you're all set:

Submit all recommended and optional attributes, wherever they're relevant: the more information shoppers have, the more they know about the products you offer. For example, make sure you're submitting the UPC, Brand, and Product Type attributes.

Use the Google Local Business Center to send us your local store locations: Google Product Search is now showing local store locations in our search results, so make sure to send us this data. Also, if you have local stores, include the "online only" attribute for any items you only stock online.

Send us the largest and highest-quality images you have. We're planning on experimenting with displays that use large images; products that have big, high-quality images will stand out. Please send us images that are at least 300 x 300 pixels, without resizing them.

As the pace of shopping speeds up for the holidays, it's important to make sure you're submitting often enough to keep your listings fresh and accurate for stock status and pricing.

Use Google Analytics or your favorite web analytics program to track your traffic.

Thanks for participating in Google Product Search, and we wish you all the best this holiday season.

Posted by Vivek Tata, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Retiring Google Base's Separate Search Page

2009-10-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

Google Base has its own search page for users to search across everything that's been uploaded, but it isn't widely used. Instead, people search on Google Product Search for products, or on Google Maps to find houses for rent or sale. Therefore, we're planning to retire Google Base's separate search page in a few weeks.

Since not many people use the page, this change should not have a big impact your traffic. All data remains available through the Google Base API and through any applications that make use of it. As before, you can search for your own product listings in Google Product Search.

We expect this change won't be very disruptive. As always, please refer to the Merchant Center help forum if you have questions, and feel free to post a new question if what you need isn't already answered there.

Posted by Robin Züger, Product Manager, Google Base

Introducing the Google Merchant Center

2009-09-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today, we're excited to announce that we're launching the Google Merchant Center, which will replace Google Base for those of you submitting Product-type items to Google. If you submit products to Google, Google Merchant Center is now the place to upload your feeds, check on the status of your items, and get information on the performance of your listings.

Google Base is still available for other types of structured content, but the Merchant Center provides a better, optimized experience specifically for product listings. The Merchant Center is where we'll continue adding features and improving the tools for uploading and managing product listings.

In general, the Merchant Center interface is very similar to the Google Base interface, so we hope it's easy to transition. Sign in to the Merchant Center using the same Google Account information you did for Google Base. Your existing data feeds, items, FTP settings, etc. will be there for you.

For any non-product items you've submitted to Google Base, those will remain there and you can continue using Google Base to manage those items and settings. If you used the same account to submit both product and non-product items, you'll need to go into Google Base and reset your FTP settings. There's more info in the FAQs about this and other questions you may have.

As part of the launch of Google Merchant Center, this blog will be replacing the Google Base Blog. Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions, and visit us often!

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center