Google has added yet another addition to Google Base, ”Data Quality” (Fig 1.) This time however it is contained within your dashboard and informs you of how your data feed complies, broken down into 7 sections.

Most customers come to me with the problem that they feel their feeds are inaccurate, poor quality or in some cases believe their feeds comply with all regulations and recommendations, however, appear low on results. On inspection I usually find this to be the contrary and they are falling down with poor, incomplete or incorrectly formatted feeds.

The sections contained within this additional “Data Quality” option are set out within the original and updated attribute help documentation. If you, as a user have followed these to the letter then the results given to you here will be slim if any.

Below I will go into some detail on what is contained within the Data Quality tab and using an account that I manage take some screenshots. 

Please Note! I have adjusted one section to show how exactly the information would be displayed, this is for demonstration only and will be reverted back in order to have a clean slate.

Covered in the Data Quality tab (Fig 2.) are:

• Summary (Fig 3.) - This shows current active items and the date of which your feed was last updated. Although, this is not new information to be found on the dashboard, the  following are. 
• Invalid Identifiers - UPC (a number other than the 12 digit expected), EAN (13,8 or 14 digit numbers are all that are allowed), ISBN (ISBN numbers should be in a 10 or 13 digit format)
• Invalid Condtions - Anything other than new, used or refurbished.
• Long Titles (Fig 4.) - Google recommend a title shorter than 70 Characters.
• Missing Identifiers - UPC, EAN, ISBN. Although as stated time and time before, It may be hard to locate these, but Google do respect these highly.
• Missing Conditions - Everything has a condition, be it new or used.
• Short Descriptions - Descriptions play a very strong part in getting results, if no attention is placed here then you can’t surely expect to be highly ranked. 

For more help on supplying this data correctly see my previous post here.

If you find yourself with results in all sections, don’t panic, if there is no immediate error in the dashboard and your items are active then this is not an immediate case for concern, however, Google provide this information to improve your feed and results and this should always be taken on board.

These suggestions will indeed ensure your feed complies with Google’s recommendations, however it does not include the many recommended attributes or custom attributes you may have placed within your feed on creation or optimisation. 

It is by no means a solution to every feed issue, nor is it going to produce top quality feeds, this comes from providing relevant information most often added in custom attributes and a close knowledge of your products and which attributes will compliment these within your feed.

My opinion of this feature is, it provides an excellent starting point to Google Base Users that have no idea where to start when solving issues with their feeds and even lends a hand in improving the quality of data. Currently, however, if your Data Quality summary is showing a perfect round score of 0 then, firstly congratulations but secondly, if you are search results are poor then this isn’t going to shed any light on why as it stand.

If you are still struggling with your results even after following all pointers set out in your Data Quality summary then why not take a look here and see if it helps.