Variant Apparel Listing in Google Product Search

If you are an on-line apparel retailer, then it is important to follow the set guidelines in place. Not only will including all these attributes ensure your processing and positioning within results, but you will also gain valuable keywords by completing each carefully and more importantly accurately.


Apparel products must include the following

United States Requirements.

ID - Do not change your original ID for items if you are altering your feed to include Item Group ID attribute.
Title - 70 Characters is the noted preferred by Google.
* Note - By adding the Item Group ID attribute, your title must follow one of two options.
1. Share an identical title (Item Name)
2. Vary only by the inclusion of the variant. (Item Name - Green), (Item Name - Blue) etc...
Description - Up to 10'000 characters can be used within this attribute. This allows you to include a rich, accurate, keyword full description. Match that of your site and product variant. For instance if you are listing a green version of the item, make sure you change the description to state so.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing.
* -  Note - By adding the Item Group ID attribute, your resulting URL should have the variant pre-selected within drop down menus if possible. This is most important if your variants vary in price.
Image Link - Should be the variant product image, not a place-holder or different variant image.
Condition - New or Refurbished
Availability - In Stock/Out of Stock/Available for order/Preorder
Price - Price should relate to the variant item
Tax - Either include in your feed or within the tax settings found on your dashboard.
Shipping - As with tax, this can be specified in your feed or dashboard.
Brand - The brand of the item, not your company name


The above are pretty standard across the board as required.


Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy.
Item Group ID - This again, can be anything you like, however, you must ensure you use it only for items that are variants of the same product. By including this you are informing Google to look for your item in a range of colors, materials, patterns etc.. as such at the very least one of the variants must differ in each item sharing the Item Group ID.
Gender - Male/Female/Unisex
Age Group - Kids/Adult
Color - Color of the Variant Item
Size - Size of the Variant Item
* - Not all items will have small, medium, large values, for items such as hats, I use One Size.
Material - Material of the Variant Item
Pattern - Pattern of the Variant Item

United Kingdom Requirements

ID - Do not change your original ID at any point in your feed.
Title - 70 Characters is the noted preferred by Google.
Description - Up to 10'000 characters can be used within this attribute. This allows you to include a rich, accurate, keyword full description. Match that of your site and product variant. For instance if you are listing a green version of the item, make sure you change the description to state so.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing. Allowing each item a unique landing page.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy. (using the GB version, not all GPC's follow the same line of chains).
Image Link - You should always try to provide a large high quality image.
Condition - New or Refurbished
Availability - In Stock/Out of Stock/Available for order/Preorder
Price - Price should be inclusive of Vat.
Brand - The brand of the item, not your company name
Tax - Either include in your feed or within the tax settings found on your dashboard.
Shipping - As with tax, this can be specified in your feed or dashboard.


If you are having trouble with creating your feed you could try using our data feed creation service.