On Tuesday July 13th 2010 Google Product Search sent out an e-mail to their merchants letting them know that as of August 2010 merchant who submit products in the electronics, books or media categories will need to include applicable manufacturers part numbers (MPN), brand names, universal product codes (UPC) and international standard book number (ISBN) in their data feed. These fields will NOT be required but as they say “to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible”

As I have said all along, the more information that you include with your listings, the more relevant they will be and the higher they will list within the search results. If you are an electronics merchant currently submitting to Google Product Search, you better be submitting those fields anyway! If you are not, you should head back to comparison shopping engine marketing class 101.

I have posted the whole e-mail below in case you missed it. As always have a great day and if you need help with anything, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

CSE.Manager@gmail.com

Hello,

Starting in late August 2010, we are making some changes to how your products in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories may appear on Google Product Search. In order to provide as much information as possible to our users, we need your help in matching your products to our “product pages” where users are able to view useful data such as product specifications or reviews. If you are submitting products in the above categories for the US version of Google Product Search, please start including unique product identifiers, such as MPN, Brand, UPC or ISBN. We will make similar changes to Product Search in the UK and Germany at a later date.

These attributes will not be required for your feed to process correctly, however, to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible. You can find unique product identifier information on Product Search product pages, under the “technical specifications” section for Electronics items, the “Tracks” or “Details” section for Media, and the “Overview” section for books.

For more details, including what specific identifiers you should include for each category of item, please see our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160161

Sincerely,

The Google Product Search Team

Email preferences: You have received this email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Merchant Center account. Please do not reply to this email directly. If you have any questions, please contact us from our Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/merchants

Copyright 2010. Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043.

Yesterday, Comparison Shopping Engine Management reported a problem with Google Base/Merchant Center. I am happy to report that this issue has been resolved. All of our client’s feeds that went out this morning were picked up and processed by Google without error.

Here is link to the help forum where Google acknowledges the problem:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/base/thread?tid=04c2d685fe982779&hl=en

In case you missed it, here is the e-mail that Google was sending out (in error) to its merchants when they submit a file on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

Dear Google Merchant Center user,

On March 2, 2010 11:32:44 AM PST you uploaded to Google Merchant Center via FTP a file named “FILENAME.TXT”, but you don’t have a data feed registered with this name. Please verify that you provided the correct file name, including correct capitalization.

This is a computer-generated email. Please do not reply.

You can change your notification settings at http://www.google.com/merchants/basicsettings

CSE.Manager@gmail.com

I just wanted to report a problem with Google Base/Merchant Center that has been occurring all day.

If you are receiving e-mails like this after submitting your feed, don’t freak out and blame yourself. This is a Google side error, your not to blame….. …..this time

Dear Google Merchant Center user,

On March 2, 2010 11:32:44 AM PST you uploaded to Google Merchant Center via FTP a file named “FILENAME.TXT”, but you don’t have a data feed registered with this name. Please verify that you provided the correct file name, including correct capitalization.

This is a computer-generated email. Please do not reply.

You can change your notification settings at http://www.google.com/merchants/basicsettings

Here is a link to the:

Google Base Help Forums where people are reporting the issue:

I will update everyone once the error has been fixed by Google.

CSE.Manager@gmail.com