UPC Finder

Some of you may be aware that in 2008 I created a competitor analysis tool. This allowed users of Google Merchant Center to view their competitors listings along with their own in terms of price and attributes being provided. Since then my tool set has expanded and I now offer a UPC finder/collector for those of you who do not have this information to hand.

As we all know, UPC's are required within Google Merchant Center now, without these, you can find yourself disapproved and have your listings removed from results!

Although, it is always best to gather the UPC's direct from the manufacturer, for those of you who cannot, or are missing only a few then this tool can offer some assistance.

Below you will find some screenshots which take you through the process of using the tool.

Tomthedeveloper Tools Home Screen

UPC Finder Home Screen

Enter your accountID within the text entry box, select your target country from the drop down menu and perform your search.

If you are unsure of your accountID then using the "find" text located above the entry box, type your store name.

A choice of stores matching your entry will be displayed. Locate your store and click to enter the AccountID automatically in the entry box.

Once you have entered your AccountID, you can perform your search.

A list of products will be displayed. You will find the UPC that you currently supply (if applicable) listed along with other users entries. If your current value is displayed in both areas, this will be highlighted to you. The number located within brackets following the UPC denotes the times used.

If you notice a yellow bar running across the lower part of the screen, this is due to the fact you are using the limited version of the tools. This will limit your results and although will provide you an insight into the tool, will not sadly provide you with your complete feeds results.

If you have an account, then please login with the details you will have been provided.

Your limit will then be lifted and you will be provided full access to the tool, allowing you to view results for all items linked to your account.

FAQ


1. How do I get full access?
You can request an account by emailing me directly, however, as there are limits in place, I cannot guarantee you will be granted unlimited access right away. Please feel free to contact me and I can let you know the current status of testers.


2. My UPC's cannot be found?
Although the tools pulls all corresponding UPC's, it relys solely on information used in Google Shopping API and no external references are used in collecting UPC's, the results are based on 1000 returned values from a search using the title provided. If a particular UPC returns no values, then this is more than likely due to the lack of information being made available, or being provided to Google by other users. If you feel this is not the case, and you are having problems with all items, then please contact me.


3. I used a UPC that your tool suggested and Google state it is invalid?
Like above, we rely on other users supplied information to gather the UPC's. If there are more UPC's listed alongside the one currently used, then try another value, as it does not always ring true that the most popular used is always correct.


4. Can I download a complete copy of the UPC's relating to my account?
No, currently, you can see only that of 5 results per page.


5. Can I search using my title rather than AccountID?
No, the UPC finder uses your AccountID only, if you are looking specifically for one item, then I would suggest using the competitor analysis tool for this purpose. If this item you are searching for has a UPC supplied then this will be found beside the GTIN value.

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.

Apparel Listing in Google Product Search

Guidelines for Apparel that is a single item, rather than being available in a variety of options.
Apparel products must include the following. Only use these requirements if you are not listing the items with more than one size or color available.

United States Requirements.

ID - Do not change your original ID on any uploads.
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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing.
Image Link - Should be the product image, not a place-holder or different than listed product 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 within your feed or within the tax settings found within 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
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.

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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy. (using the GB version, not all GPC's follow the same line of chains).
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing. Allowing each item a unique landing page.
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 within your feed or within the tax settings found within 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.

Books & Listing them on Google Merchant Center

Listing Books within Google Merchant Center has very similar requirements to that of Media, Video Game Software. The requirements are below, along with a few links to helpful resources.

United States Requirements.

ID - Do not change your original ID on any uploads.
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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing.
Image Link - Should be the product image, not a place-holder or different than listed product image.
Condition - New or Refurbished
Availability - In Stock/Out of Stock/Available for order/Preorder
Price - Price should relate to the variant item
ISBN - The identifier Google require for this is ISBN, unlike most other categories where you can supply your choice from 3 listed (EAN, UPC or ISBN) you are only allocated use of ISBN. This is either a 10 or 13 digit number given to the book itself. Never create a value for the above, the book will have one and it is your job to locate it. If you do not have this listed, then search within tools made available for this purpose.
If however, you have both available for use, Google have asked for the 13 digits as preference.
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.

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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy. (using the GB version, not all GPC's follow the same line of chains).
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing. Allowing each item a unique landing page.
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
ISBN - As above 10/13 digit valid numbers only
Tax - Either include within your feed or within the tax settings found within 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.

Media + Video Games Listing in Google Product Search

Media & Video Game Software listing within Google Merchant Center, should be relatively simple, with the only attribute over what your site should currently hold would be the Google Product Category, however, please find below the requirements for your target country.

United States Requirements.

ID - Do not change your original ID on any uploads.
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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing.
Image Link - Should be the product image, not a place-holder or different than listed product image.
Condition - New or Refurbished
Availability - In Stock/Out of Stock/Available for order/Preorder
Price - Price should relate to the variant item
UPC - The identifier Google require for this is UPC, unlike most other categories where you can supply your choice from 3 listed (EAN, UPC or ISBN) you are only allocated use of UPC. This is the 12 digit number associated with the product itself. Never create a value for the above, if you do not have an identifier contact the manufacturer or search within tools made available for this purpose. This would not be a product which will exempt from having a UPC so gathering it is the only option.
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.

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.
Google Product Category - Sticking Rigidly to the taxonomy. (using the GB version, not all GPC's follow the same line of chains).
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing. Allowing each item a unique landing page.
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
UPC - As above 12 digit valid numbers only
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.

Custom Goods Listing in Google Product Search

Custom Made Goods. These can be tricky to stick within Google Merchant Center requirements and at times do require you to contact Google requesting exemptions.

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.


Your dashboard can alert you that you are missing identifiers for your products, however, if you are hand making these goods, chances are you will not have purchased these. You can request an exemption from Google on this. Although it is NOT a requirement to have a UPC for custom made goods, if your products fall under the a category which does then you will be faced with this warning. You will only be granted an exemption if your products truly are unique and anyone who does list similar does not provide a valid identifier. Never create a value for the above, if you do not have an identifier either leave this blank or contact Google for advice on how to proceed.

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.
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.
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.

Product Listing in Google Merchant Center

If you find yourself listing products that do not fall into one of the previous sectioned categories, then the requirements for your items are listed below. Ensure before following this guide, that not a single item can be contained within a fore-mentioned category.

United States Requirements.

ID - Do not change your original ID's on any future uploads.
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.
Link - The link should feed directly to the item you are listing.
Image Link - Should be the product image, not a place-holder.
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.


2 of the following must be included, not all three are essential, however, if possible try to include them all.


Brand - The brand of the item, not your company name
GTIN - Cumulative name for UPC, ISBN & EAN
-UPC -12 Digit Number
-EAN - 13 Digit Number
-ISBN - 10 or 13 Digit Number (use 13 digits if both are available)
MPN - Alphanumeric characters


* NOTE: Never create a value for the above, to locate the appropriate value contact the manufacturer directly or make use of available tools that can aid in finding a correct match. Or request an exemption.

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.
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.


2 of the following must be included, not all three are essential, however, if possible try to include them all.


GTIN - Cumulative name for UPC, ISBN & EAN
-UPC -12 Digit Number
-EAN - 13 Digit Number
-ISBN - 10 or 13 Digit Number (use 13 digits if both are available)
MPN - Alphanumeric characters


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

Variant Non Apparel Listing in Google Product Search

Following on from the 'Variant Apparel Listing in Google Product Search', we will now cover all the necessary attributes for Variant Products outside that of apparel..

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.


2 of the following must be included, not all three are essential, however, if possible try to include them all.


Brand - The brand of the item, not your company name
GTIN - Cumulative name for UPC, ISBN & EAN
-UPC -12 Digit Number
-EAN - 13 Digit Number
-ISBN - 10 or 13 Digit Number (use 13 digits if both are available)
MPN - Alphanumeric characters


* NOTE: Never create a value for the above, to locate the appropriate value contact the manufacturer directly or make use of available tools that can aid in finding a correct match.


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.
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.
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
GTIN - Cumulative name for UPC, ISBN & EAN
-UPC -12 Digit Number
-EAN - 13 Digit Number
-ISBN - 10 or 13 Digit Number (use 13 digits if both are available)
MPN - Alphanumeric characters
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.

Google Merchant Center Requirements

Google Merchant Center's Table of Requirements

The above table can be located in Google Help Documentation, however, it can be difficult just making sure your attributes and item type always line up. Also if you are unsure of the values suited for those required it can be a lot of back and forth just to find what you need data.


So! I have compiled blogs relating to each category in a straight forward list for those who prefer to see only that information relative to them.


Please select your chosen area below for a simplified version of the table above.


Variant Non Apparel Listing in Google Product Search
Variant Apparel Listing in Google Product Search
Apparel Listing in Google Product Search
Books & Listing them on Google Merchant Center
Media + Video Games Listing in Google Product Search
Custom Goods Listing in Google Product Search
Product Listing in Google Merchant Center


I hope this offers some help to those of you who are struggling.

Understanding your Google Merchant Center dashboard - Products

The products page holds information on all items you upload to Google Merchant Center and also displays any problems, inactive items and where they can be found. 

Along with the title of your item, the price, availability, condition, product placements, impressions, clicks, country and language are also displayed as standard.

However, by selecting the Deactivate button, you can from here, select a particular amount of items and deactivate them from your feed. Why would you want to do this? Say you have no time to regenerate your feed or have no access to your feed to re-upload a fresh copy. You possibly have sold out of a number of items and do not want to risk disapproval for listing items that are unavailable, pricing is incorrect or a similar situation.

By using this option, you can deactivate these items temporarily, either until your next upload or when you select the chosen items and manually choose to Activate them once more. 

What I use the products page for.

Personally, if I am performing optimisation on a customers feed, in particular a set amount of products before sending it feed wide, this is an excellent way of monitoring this, By selecting the item or by using the Lookup by ID button you can see performance relating to this item alone, how long the item has been active, the search clicks achieved on a particular day within the last 12 day period, the picture used in the listing and all attributes Google have received from you regarding the product.

The main screen will also allow you to see your inactive products, possibly placed here by Google rather than yourself. By once again selecting the item, and being taken to the individual product page, you can see all the information much clearer than in a spreadsheet or xml document. This can aid in discovering the issues much faster and therefore help get them activated once resolved.

Understanding your Google Merchant Center dashboard - Data Feeds

This area of your dashboard is probably the most important to check on almost every upload.

You have your standard details, Feed name, type and target country, Update method, if you have a scheduled upload, (where Google automatically gather your feed from a URL etc), then this will show here also.

You will then see your last update date and finally the most important area in my opinion within your dashboard, the status.

If you have errors you will see as created above, you can click the view errors link. This will take you to the resulting errors page.

Common errors found within this section can include the following

XML Formatting Error

Missing Recommended Attribute: Brand, Google_Product_Category etc..

Invalid UPC Value

A lot of people asked for it and Google DID listen. The datafeed download link has been applied to this page. For most users, this will never be used, however, for those who use a company that uploads direct from their site, Volusion etc.. and allows no modification to be applied, this can be used to modify errors that may be causing problems in areas reachable out-with the feed. This could be your descriptions, titles etc. By being able to access the feed itself you can easily tie up the errors and rectify to the best of your ability (if you are not in possession of your actual feed) or at the very least inform those who do control your feed that these errors are happening and need rectified.

This area should not be confused with the Data Quality tab. We will discuss this in greater detail in a later blog, but the information displayed in these two differ and both should be addressed as the stability, performance and processing of the feed relies heavily on Google being happy with both areas.

Understanding your Google Merchant Center dashboard - Performance Report

In this series of blogs I will take you through how to understand all areas of your dashboard, possibly even bring to your attention areas you did not know were actually there.

First and most importantly, we can tackle that of performance stats. This is probably the first place people care about, due to the obvious nature of the section, How well am I doing?

Firstly, there are three areas that you can see this.

On Initial Login to your Merchant Center Account.

Within the performance report tab. 

Each area shows a varied display. Within the performance area of the dashboard home page, you see a standard snippet. This shows you the last 12 days performance. Found below the graph is a link to the full performance page. This is also accessible, by selecting the performance tab on the left side menu.

Within the performance tab itself, you find a modifiable graph.

This graph allows you to select a particular date range, either by 1 day, 5 days, 1,3 or 6 months, 1 year or the maximum set within your activity timeline. You can also set a customisable date range by dragging the timeline itself.

Also found on this page, is your average click rate. This is located in the lower section along with target country.

I feel this is a better performance monitor than looking specifically at the graph. We all have good and bad days; however, a more constant rate of traffic is preferable. The graph monitoring can be very misleading, spikes and those all so dreaded dips can seem much more meaningful in terms of a graph, however, you may find your average daily click exceeds the prior weeks.

The graph is not all bad, use the graph to spot pitfalls, do you find your traffic is always very poor on a monday, wed, sat.... do you do anything different on these days?

Is this a day you do not upload your feed?
Do you tend to run out of stock and therefore have fewer items available?
Is this a day your competitors add new lines of stock or reduce pricing?

It is always good to gather information from both areas as this will allow you to better make modifications to your feed in the future. If you are planning to make changes in terms of optimising, possibly use your down days to monitor improvements, rather than selecting an already successful day as a guide.

The last place to look for performance is in the products option, again positioned on the left side menu.

Within the products tab

Here you will see you have two variations on performance. Impr (Impressions) and Clicks.

Impressions may not always match, like above the clicks, they will not always exceed the clicks and at times may have a count of 0 whilst the clicks are in their hundreds. You will see above with the example image, one of the items has only 6 Impressions, but 166 Clicks.

How is this possible? Well, the answer is simple. They do not pull from the same data. Impressions are not how many times your item has shown in Google Shopping. Instead this is the number of times the items have been viewed outside Google Products in external applications. It records these within your dashboard as although not using Google Shopping/Products, the items are being used by an application that pulls data from Google Search API for Shopping. This can be many programs/applications, similar to my own Google Merchant Center tools

Regardless of how your sales are doing from Google Shopping, the only true representation of how your products are actually performing is within your dashboard. Your clicks could be very high but you are experiencing a very low conversion rate. This would allow you to investigate the matter and hopefully make your time and effort benefit your company. It is not always your feed that requires the extra attention. Remember, the feed and listings can get users to your site, it's your site that makes the user a customer.

Awaiting Review?

If you have uploaded a new feed and it is in the "awaiting review" period, here are a few things to know...

Google offer two review processes, manual and automatic.

Automatic reviews are involved in areas such as feed upload processing, checking domain availability, the format of the feed, missing attributes etc... From this your feed can be placed in an approved and processing or disapproved status.

Manual Review is when your feed or account is labelled with the "awaiting review" attribute. There is no time limit on this; Google can take hours, days, weeks... sometimes even longer to get back to you. This can vary depending on review type, is it a new account? disapproved status? etc....

What is involved in a manual review? No-one outside Google will be able to tell you for sure, however, you can hedge your bets it includes if not all, at least some of the following..

Regulation Checks against your website, Availability of items, Data provided for the items, Validity of the account, Requirement checks... and many more.

As with anything manual, the timeframe is always much longer than an automatic process. With the number of users, you could be talking hundreds to thousands of accounts needing reviewed daily. With these types of numbers, you can see why so many retailers lodge complaints in the forum as a result of the user they reported violating a regulation still being present in listings is so common.

What can you do? 

Well... Depending on the reason for review there are a couple of options.

Contact Google using the appropriate form and ask for some insight.

Wait it out a little longer, if it is a new account, this may be all that is required. 

If Google has sent you an email then reply to this, it should have a case number attached, so this way, they will know this is not a new case.

Regardless of how long you need to wait, as this is a free service, Google do not have to answer you. Yes in an ideal world, you would get instant responses, have live chat available to you on tap and your account would stay approved allowing you to resolve issues without losing sales, clicks etc... Sadly it is not, so waiting it out is sometimes the only option available to you, even if you do choose to contact Google.

Below are some useful contact forms for a variety of cases that may cause your account to require review.

Increase your item count limit - http://bit.ly/xRaNDc

Disapproved Questions - http://bit.ly/ywcRzD

General Upload Problems - http://bit.ly/vjumLh

Feed status of Processing for extended period of time - http://bit.ly/xrsrpD

Enquiry relating to feed specifications - http://bit.ly/wbsWtP

Data Feed Limit - 500 items

For new users or feeds registered after 22nd November 2011 they will be affected by the 500 item limit.

Established feeds registered before this date have no restrictions, as such, if you have an existing feed, ensure you do not change the name of any updates. For those who delete the current feed before uploading a fresh copy of the same feed should no longer perform this, even if all ID's, title of feed etc. remain the same.

If sadly, you are new to Google Merchant Center completely, then you can wait out the limit, however, this time frame has not been specified or you can contact Google and ask for an increase. I have found that many users do not have to wait long for this to be carried out, however, as with almost everything, there is no set period stated.

The most important thing to remember is to provide a standard of feed, maintaining all requirements and policy regulations, so as not to hold up the request by any other means.

Personally, I wouldn't suggest splitting the feeds into multiple uploads, e.g. 1000 items split over 2 new feeds, unless you know for a fact you will not be running up an endless amount of registered feeds when you add new items. You may also run into issues if you manually divide your feed, as you could end up duplicate listing items, missing items in the split etc...

Obviously the wait for your limit to be increased could cause loss in sales, and you may feel this is something you wish to do, however, as your feeds will be new to Google Shopping they will take time to find their place etc. in results, so for ease in future uploads I feel if possible, keep everything within the one feed.

Contact Google and ask for an increase using their contact form - http://bit.ly/xRaNDc

Robot Images

Have you ever received this error in your Google Merchant Center dashboard?


Roboted images 100%
The image URLs submitted seem to be blocked by robots.txt. Google will not be able to display these images together with the products. Please change your robots.txt file to allow Google to download the image.


If so you will no doubt have received the following email to your technical contact.


Hello ****,

In reviewing the items you are submitting through the Google Merchant
Center, we have found some issues with the information submitted. Because
of the issues listed below, all of your items for the indicated countries
are at risk of being suspended from Google Product Search. Please fix
these issues within 7 days to avoid suspension of all your items.

Account: *****
Account ID: *****
Country: **

Robots.txt preventing image crawl

You currently have a robots.txt file that is preventing us from crawling
the images on your site. In order for us to access these images, we'd like
you to modify your robots.txt file to allow user-agent 'googlebot' to
crawl your site.

Your current robots.txt file looks like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Please add the following two lines to the end of your robots.txt file:
User-agent: googlebot
Disallow:

Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html for a description of the
robots exclusion protocol.


Examples:

 - item id ****: ******
http://www.*******.com

Please go to the Data Quality section in the Google Merchant Center at
http://www.google.com/merchants/qualityfeedback to get more information
about the issues, and about how to fix them.

After the deadline, we will automatically review your items again. You do
not need to inform us about fixing the issues.

Sincerely,

The Google Product Search Team


If your robots.txt file is, as google report, blocking the bot, then, as google request, add within the robots.txt file, the lines


User-agent: googlebot
Disallow:


However, this will not instantly fix the problem. What to do?


Firstly, I would suggest checking within your Webmaster tools to see if in fact your images are being blocked. You can do so by following these instructions


Login to webmasters tools - http://bit.ly/eTAd3k

From the left side menu, select Crawler Access. Any problems will be displayed across from the URL and the last time this was crawled will also display.

Once on this page, scroll to the bottom and within the URL, enter the Images folder or even a particular image and click the test button. Your test results will show with an allowed or disallowed status.

Once you have made the changes to your robots.txt file, you will slowly see the percentage and number count reduce over the next days to week.

If after a few days there is no change, and you are approaching the deadline date, I would suggest you contact Google themselves as there may be another problem.

Contact Google - http://bit.ly/vjumLh