Good morning!
On Monday 10/24/2011 Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager of the Google Product Search team posted on the Google Commerce Blog about the enforcement of the new requirements that were announced in July 2011.
In the post, Mayuresh states that the enforcement of the policies has been gradual because they wanted to give merchants a chance to react and make the necessary corrections.
He does however explain that enforcement of the new requirements is on going and that they are “well on their way” to implementing all of the data compliance checks. He lists the Google Product Category, Tax & Shipping and Variant Attribute requirements as examples of these compliance checks.
Mayuresh also lists three ways to use the Google Merchant Center tools to check your data feed for errors & to ensure that your product listings are “Product Search compliant“.
Here is a link to the post Implementing the new Google Product Search feed specification
And here is a reprint of the post itself courtesy of the Google Commerce Blog:
Implementing the new Google Product Search feed specification
On September 22, the new Google Product Search feed specification that we announced in July went into effect. Since then, we’ve been gradually enforcing the new requirements by implementing additional checks over time in order to ensure a smooth roll out and give our merchants more time to react to errors and data problems.
We’re well on our way toward implementing all compliance checks, including those for Google Product Category, Tax & Shipping, and Variant attributes. Here are a few ways that you can make sure your product data feed is in good shape:
1. Review the information on the “Data Quality” tab in Google Merchant Center to see data quality errors. We recently changed this tab to give you a clearer view of the status of your items and to make it easier to see which errors are most critical. Where possible, we’ve also provided actionable advice and feedback on how to fix errors.
2. Also be sure to also check the “Data Feeds” tab in your Merchant Center account. This is where you’ll find error reports for feed-level issues (e.g. errors in syntax of submitted attributes).
3. Use the “New Test Data Feed” functionality (on the Data Feed tab) to submit a new test feed. This test mechanism also allows you to download a full feed processing report and get detailed insights into potential issues with your feed. Note that this functionality is currently only available for test feeds.
As we head into the holiday season, we want to thank our merchants for investing in making the necessary changes to their feeds and sending high-quality product data. We’re committed to maintaining a high bar for data quality and are working hard to make Google Product Search even better in the coming months.
Happy Shopping!
Posted by Mayuresh Saoji, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search team
Have a great day!
