Data Feed Optimization for Google Product Search

Do you offer search engine optimization for Google Product Search?

We offer one-on-one consulting to optimize your data feed. While we can help you optimize your feed, we do not offer content optimization services at this time. However, we have collected the best advice we can find below, and can assist you in following that advice. By simply following these tips, you can dramatically increase your ranking in Google Product Search.

What is the recommended update frequency for my data feed?

For Google and Shopping.com feeds from Yahoo Stores, we recommend the 'Daily Plus' option with Auto-Skip disabled. For all other data feeds we recommend 'Daily' with Auto-Skip disabled. Updates are free, so there is no additional cost to make this change.

Google recommends daily submission as a best practice that will improve your ranking. This is recommended even if your listings do not change often.

To change the setting, simply log into your Aten Software account. Go to the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page. Set the "Update Frequency", the "Auto-Skip" setting to "Disabled", and then save the settings.

Tax and Shipping settings for Google Product Search

Starting June 3, 2011, tax and shipping settings are required for all Google product feeds targeting the United States. You can enter these settings at the item-level or account-level. It is easier to enter the settings at the account level.

Account-level tax and shipping rules

• Tax and Shipping Settings in your Google Merchant Dashboard
• Tax & Shipping Instructions in Google Merchant Center Help

Item-level tax and shipping rules

Our Google feeds are preconfigured to read Google shipping/tax information from the "google-shipping" and "google-tax" fields in your Yahoo Store catalog. If you need to supply item-level tax and shipping values, then please refer to the instructions below to set up these fields.

• How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?
• Tax & Shipping Instructions - click on the 'shipping' and 'tax' attribute links

How do I populate recommended or required attributes?

Google require a condition value of 'New', 'Used', or 'Refurbished' for each product. They also strongly recommend Brand and Product Type values.

You have two choices for populating these fields. One is to supply a default value that applies to all items, and the other is to supply a field name from your Yahoo Store Catalog. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page. Click “Edit” for the field, and then enter the default value and/or catalog field.

If you do not have a catalog field, then we suggest you provide default values as follows:

• Brand Default - Enter your store name, e.g. Acme Art Supply, Foo Widgets, Bar Electronics, various, etc.
• Condition Default - Enter 'New', 'Used', or 'Refurbished'
• Product Type Default - Look up an appropriate category on the Product Type Attribute page

Google Product Category and Product Type attributes

Summary

• google_product_category - only valid Google categories are allowed
• product_type - any merchant-supplied category is allowed

Product Category

Use the instructions below to add a default Google product category value for your data feed. Setting this field is required by Google beginning Sep. 22, 2011.

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page.
2. Click “Edit” for the google_product_category field.
3. Look up the appropriate category on the Google Product Taxonomy page.
   1. Expand categories and click on the category name. Select the most generic category that applies to all your products.
   2. From the box just above the category list, copy the category value that appears next to the "Text:" label. Do not use the "XML:" version.
   3. You can also use the Search box to search the taxonomy.
4. Enter the category in the "Default Value" box without double-quotes, and click the 'Update' button. You can only choose one category.
5. Resubmit your data feed.

Your feed is pre-configured to submit from the google-product-category field in your Yahoo Store catalog. To submit category information per item, follow the steps below:

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-product-category. If you do not know how, refer to the instructions to add the google-availability field.
2. Populate the values for the field.

To verify that your feed is using the google-product-category field from your store catalog, or to configure a different field name, following these steps:

1. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields page.
2. Click “Edit” for the google_product_category field.
3. Enter the field name from your store catalog in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

Product Type

'product_type' is a recommended field and you can provide your own, merchant-specific category in this field. It is pre-configured to the 'Path' field from your Yahoo Store.

You have the option of overriding this pre-configured value with the value from any of the fields in your store catalog. You can also set a Default Value that will be used for any items without any other product type. You can configure this field by going to "Manage Feed > Define Fields > Edit product_type".

How to configure Google Product Search Availability attribute

Your data feed submits the ‘in stock’ value in this attribute by default, so there is generally no need to do anything further. Note that your data feed automatically filters out items with a zero price, and items with Orderable set to No.

To specify availability information for specific items, follow these steps.

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-availability by following these steps:
   1. Log into your Yahoo Store Manager
   2. Go to Catalog Manager > Products tab > Manage Tables
   3. Select your product table using the Manage table drop-down menu.
   4. Click the Add New Attributes link just above the Custom Attributes section.
   5. In the Add New Attribute dialog box, enter the following:
      • Attribute Name: google-availability
      • Format: text
      • Default Value: in stock
      • Leave the “Description” field blank.
   6. Click Add
2. Populate one of the values listed below for each item. Google only accepts these values for the availability attribute. Refer to Yahoo Store product editing instructions for more information.
   • 'in stock' - ships in 3 business days or less
   • 'available for order' - ships in 4 or more business days
   • 'out of stock' - you are not currently taking orders
   • 'preorder' - you are taking orders for an unreleased product

Your data feed's availability attribute should already be configured to read from the google-availability field. If you need to change the field name, follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page.
2. Click “Edit” for the availability field.
3. Enter the field name from your products table in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

What are the ways to submit custom attributes in my Google feed?

If you have more fields in your Yahoo Store catalog, you can output them to your data feed by adding Catalog Fields. You can also add Static Value fields, which will supply the same value for each product. The name of the field in the output file can be almost anything--see the Google Product Search Attribute List and Defining your Custom Attributes for details.

The values in the above field types are passed through directly without any changes. If you need special handling, consider upgrading to a Custom data feed. We have customizable field types that can do things such as remove HTML tags, remove boilerplate text, and re-categorize products.

How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?

You can easily add custom fields to your Yahoo Store catalog in order populate item-specific values. Check out the excellent video by 1choice4yourstore, Yahoo Store Database Uploads Video Tutorial, for a helpful overview. You can also refer to the Adding, editing, and removing attributes from tables instructions and contact Yahoo Store technical support for further assistance.

Suggested Fields to Add

The fields below can be added as 'Shopping Fields' to the table in Yahoo Store Catalog Manager. The fields in bold are pre-configured in our Google feeds.

• product-url
• manufacturer
• yshopping-category
• merchant-category
• brand
• upc
• manufacturer-part-number
• condition
• ypath
• color
• yahoo-shopping-category
• ean
• promo-text
• classification
• in-yshopping
• model-number
• gender
• age-range
• age-group
• size
• style-number
• msrp
• medium
• isbn
• style

We recommend adding the following custom fields in the 'Custom Fields' section of the table, when applicable:

• google-product-category
• google-shipping
• google-tax
• google-online-only
• google-condition

Populating the Fields

After adding the custom fields, use the Yahoo links below for instructions on how populate the data using Excel or OpenOffice Calc.

• What is the Upload/Download feature?
• Yahoo Store New Catalog Manager Help

How do I add attributes to my data feed?

These instructions describe how to add attributes such as brand, MPN, UPC, and ISBN to your data feed. This assumes that you have the appropriate field added and populated in your Yahoo Store Catalog. If that has not been completed, please refer to How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?. If you have a legacy store, please refer to How do I add custom attributes to a legacy Yahoo store?.

1. Go to "Manage Feed > Define Fields".
2. Select 'Public | Catalog Field' in the drop-down at the bottom of the page, and click 'Add'.
3. In the 'Name' box, enter the name of the Google attribute in lowercase. Here are some examples: brand, manufacturer, mpn, upc, isbn, ean.
4. Leave the 'Enabled', 'Position', and 'Default Value' settings at their defaults.
5. In the 'Catalog Field Name', enter the name of the matching custom field from your Yahoo Store Catalog in lowercase, and then click 'Add'.

After completing the above steps, run a Refresh task from the "Manage Feed > Submit a Task" page, then go to the "Manage Feed > View Random Product" to see a sample item listing. If the listing looks good, run a Submit task to update your listings.

How can I find out what attributes I should add to my data feed?

You can use the Google Base Competitor Analysis Tool to find appropriate attributes to submit with your products. Enter keywords your customers use to find your products, and you can see the standard and custom attributes being submitted by your competitors.

How do I optimize my keywords for Google Product Search?

Because Google’s search algorithms are secret, there is no guaranteed way to improve your visibility and ranking in the search results. Furthermore, as the algorithms change over time, your visibility and ranking will also change over time. The following are only general techniques to improve your search engine ranking for Google Product Search.

The closer your product descriptions and titles match the keywords that people are typing into the search box, the higher the resulting listing. Keyword order and spelling are important. Matches in titles rank higher than matches in descriptions. On your site’s product pages, text size, placement, and contrast affect the importance of the keywords. (Hidden text in meta tags is generally ignored.) These guidelines are not absolute.

Be sure to read through the Google Merchant Center Editorial Guidelines.

We also highly recommend the Yahoo Store Webinars.

Example

Target Keywords

nike air max 360 mens

Title

Nike Air Max 360 Mens Size 7 Sneakers

Description

Nike Air Max 360 Mens Size 7 Sneakers BB low basketball shoes. The Mens Nike Air Max 360 BB is designed for the athlete...

Strategies

• Keywords are the first words in the title and description.
• Keyword spelling matches exactly, including punctuation and plurality (case does not matter).
• Keyword order matches exactly.
• Keywords are repeated in the description multiple times, with variations.
• Use the suggestions that pop-up when you search in Google to determine the correct keywords to target. The most popular keyword phrases appear higher.
• Longer keyword phrases (i.e. the most specific ones) have the highest conversion rates.

Will Checkout badges improve my ranking in Google Product Search?

Google Product Search is an unbiased product search engine, and therefore, usage of Google Checkout or Adwords does not affect your ranking. However, your store will be more prominently featured by having the Checkout badge next to your items. This is one avenue you may wish to investigate further. We currently do not offer any services in this regard.

How do I enable Google Checkout Badges on my product listings?

We currently do not have specific instructions on enabling Google Checkout Badges for your items submitted to Google Merchant Center. However, you may find the following links helpful.

• Integrating with Google Products > Google Checkout
• Google Merchant Center > Google Checkout settings
• Google Merchant Center > Sell your products through Google Checkout
• Google Checkout > How to check badge status
• Google Checkout > Badge requirements
• Google Merchant Center Forum > Google Base: My listing in the product search does not include a Google Checkout badge

Title Length for SEO: Importance of the 70 character limit for Google

According to Google's Product Feed Specifications, the 'title' attribute has a suggested maximum length of 70 characters. Therefore, products with long titles will still be listed in search results.

However, since Google search results only display about 70 characters of the title, and products with long titles are not as user-friendly, it stands to reason that products with longer titles may be demoted in the ranking. Furthermore, the words after 70 characters may not be considered as relevant. Some SEO experts also recommend keeping page titles under 70 chars. Therefore, our opinion is that while an appropriate title length is important, it is not strictly necessary for every product. Similar reasoning applies to page titles for Google's organic search ranking.

Note that we have no direct knowledge of Google's algorithms, so the above suggestions represent an opinion only.

If your product titles are excessively long, we can program your (Custom) feed so that all the titles are limited to a 70 character title length by truncating long titles at a word boundary.

Setting the online_only (online only) attribute

Use the instructions below to set the online_only value for your Google Product Search feed. Enter 'y' if the item is only available to purchase online, or 'n' if a customer can buy (or pick-up) the posted item at your physical location.

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page in our site.
2. Click “Edit” for the online_only field.
3. Enter either 'y' or 'n' in the "Default Value" box without quotes, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

If online_only is different for each item, follow these steps.

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-online-only.
2. Populate the values for the field with either 'y' or 'n'.
3. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page in our site.
4. Click “Edit” for the online_only field.
5. Enter google-online-only in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
6. Resubmit your data feed.

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