New Google Products Requirements

[abpublish]

Does anyone on here submit their stuff to Google products? It is something many of my customers have found useful. However, there is a new requirement that you include the EAN barcode number in the data and they have said that you run the risk of your products not being listed if you omit the data.

What does everyone think about this? It is a lot of work for my customers to start recording this and I can't believe that many people will be in a position to do this by the 3rd of May deadline.

 

[alanjgrainger]

Thanks for reminding me about that, I filed the email away into my "to do" folder and then promptly forgot about it!

We use it for one of our websites and do get some joy from it, especially when the products are embedded onto the first page of the SERPS.

As for the changes, if they make us jump through hoops and the changes you have to make are too time consuming I'd have to look to see if will be worth busting a gut to finish quickly. I'd like to think that they aren't going to hit you too hard straight away but you never can tell with Google.

I'll give you an update once I've dusted down the email and started working on my feed!

 

[Curious]

Have you got a link please?

 

[alanjgrainger]

Got the email - PM me with your email address and I'll forward it to you if you like.

 

[alanjgrainger]

Scratch that - here you go. http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/changes-for-google-product-search.html

 

[Curious]

Thanks, very much appreciated.

Gonna have to get my Copy and Paste on shortly then!

 

[Bill1954]

Oh my God what a bummer and totally unecessary. We have 6000 products listed, adding this information will be really time consuming apart from having to contact the makers of the software we use to generate our data feeds and tell them they need to add a new requirement, and for what ?
All of our products are named and bear the manufacturers product code. Why the hell would anyone need to know the barcode number. This is another case of the big G flexing their muscles and making online retailers jump through hoops for no gain whatsoever.

 

[JElder]

Billy: Google is starting a comparison engine. As the only way they can be totally sure they are comparing the same product is by the use of the EAN, they are asking for this to be supplied wherever possible.

You could submit your file with your internal product references instead of the EAN, but you risk being not added to the comparison.

It's one of these things google is doing to make life easier for searchers, but harder for webmasters, SEOs and online sellers. You can either deal with it or find al alternate route to market - a bit harsh but the Google merchant feed is free, unlike a lot of their competitors.