Google Product Search (aka Froogle/Google Base) Questions
How will I benefit from being listed in Google Product Search?
Google Product Search is an extension of the Google search engine that millions of people around the globe use daily to research products before they purchase. Listing your product in Google Product Search is a free way to extend the reach of your marketing efforts to millions of new customers. From Google Product Search's Information for Merchants.
Some or all of my products already appear in Google Product Search, what benefit is there from submitting directly?
Google Product Search can pick up your store if you enable store export. However, Google encourages Yahoo! store owners to submit data feeds directly, because you will have more control over what is submitted and how often it is updated.
Does submitting a feed affect my placement in the search results?
Yes and No. Submitted products appear in the "confirmed" results, which appear before the "unconfirmed" results from the general Web. Beyond this benefit, submitting a feed has no effect on placement in the search results.
Shopping.com Questions
Shopping.com can read my store directly. What is the advantage of using your feed service?
You can exclude low-margin products from submission to save on unwanted clicks. Our system submits product options and any custom fields, thereby improving your product placement. Finally, you can rely on our technical support in case of any problems.
Google Product Search Questions
How long does it take for my products to be listed?
This service allows you to submit your products immediately. Google Base will process the submission within about one day. For new stores, approval of your products will take an additional few days. Approved products appear shortly in the search results.
How does this service categorize my products?
This service leaves the product categories exactly as they are defined in your Yahoo! store. You can define a default category for uncategorized products. Google Product Search will map your categories onto their own categories.
Will my images be submitted to Google Product Search?
Yes. The image link for each product is correctly parsed out of the XML data and submitted.
Can I exclude some products from submission?
Yes. You can create flexible exclusion criteria for each feed. For example, you can set up a filter to exclude all products whose name contains "gift certificate". This is important because Google does not accept gift certificates and some other types of items.
How often can I submit my feed?
You can schedule your feed to submit daily, weekly, tri-weekly, monthly, or never. Submissions are automatically skipped if your store has not been republished since the last submission. However, if more than 30 days have passed since the last successful submission, the feed will be submitted regardless of publication date to prevent your products from dropping out.
How are item options submitted?
Product options are automatically recognized and submitted. They are appended to the product description in a readable format, e.g. "Smily Face T-Shirt - Options: Size: S, M, L - Color: White, Black". More keywords in the description help your search result rankings for longer, multi-term queries. Longer queries tend to have higher conversion rates.
Is additional information for books, music, or videos submitted?
No. This feature is not yet available.
Is there support for extended information, such as availability, shipping cost, or quantity pricing?
No. This feature is not yet available.
Is the service available for non-US stores or in alternate currencies?
No. This feature is not yet available.
Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?
All products without a price are filtered out automatically, because Google requires a products to be orderable and have a minimum price of $0.01.
How much additional traffic (or clickthroughs, leads, sales) will my store attract if it is listed in Google?
You may or may not receive additional traffic. It depends on many factors including your product mix, pricing, Google's search algorithms, and buyer tastes. This service only manages data submission, and does not guarantee that your products will be accepted by Google, or that you will see a traffic increase. Please see the Terms of Service for details.
How reliable is this service?
Our submission technology has been in continuous use since early 2003, just after Froogle's inception in late 2002. Our secure, dedicated, data processing servers are hosted by Verio Inc.
I run multiple Yahoo! stores, can I set up multiple feeds?
Yes, you can set up any number of Yahoo! stores from your account. Google will review each store's feed separately, and you may not submit the same product in multiple feeds.
I run multiple Yahoo! stores, but some products appear in more than one store. Is this a problem?
No. Our service offers an exclusive automatic duplicate exclusion feature. You can set a priority for each store, and then products in multiple stores will only be submitted in the highest priority store. This ensures that all your products are submitted, and each is only submitted once.
Can I download my data feed file?
Yes. You can generate a data feed file for download from your account.
The file will be available for 30 days. You can download or regenerate the file as many times as needed.
Administrative Questions
Will I be charged if a task fails?
Your account will be credited automatically if a task fails.
Will I be charged if the data feed is not accepted by the recipient?
No submission fee refund will be made if the recipient does not accept your product data, unless there is a technical flaw with the data format.
Will I be charged for submission when my store has not changed?
No. The system automatically detects and cancels submissions if your store data has not been republished and the exclusion criteria remain unchanged since the last submission, saving you submission fees.
Are there any hidden fees?
There is no minimum usage requirement, but accounts must be funded in advance. You can fund your account with as little as $10. There is a $0.15 daily account maintenance fee.
What support do I receive?
Included in your service is troubleshooting and technical support support by email. There is also help documentation available on the website.
What if I want to cancel my service?
You can stop your submissions at any time. If you want to close your account, we will provide a full refund of any remaining credit in your account (less free trial credit).
What payment methods do you accept?
We accept all major credit card payments, eChecks, and business checks. Payments are processed online through Paypal or Google Checkout, or may be mailed in.
System Questions
I have an eBay store. Can your system submit my products to Google Product Search?
eBay automatically submits "Buy It Now" product listings to Google. eBay Sellers do not need (and can not obtain) a Google Base account. All they have to do is sign up for the eBay export listings program.
Does your system submit to any other shopping sites besides Google Product Search and Shopping.com?
We currently do not support any platforms except Yahoo to Google Product Search and Yahoo to Shopping.com.
Shopzilla.com Data Feed for Yahoo Stores
Is there a Shopzilla data feed for Yahoo Stores?
Shopzilla has an option to import your Yahoo Store directly. You simply give them the location of your objinfo.xml file. They will process it roughly two to six times a day, depending on the size, regardless of whether it's been updated or not.
