Improving the Product Search Experience

Over the past year, we’ve launched a number of exciting features on Google Product Search. Users can now access YouTube videos, product reviews, and other information from a single page about a product - what we call a “product page.” (For example, see this product page for a Canon Rebel camera). Users appreciate this information, and we want to make sure your product offers are included on these product pages. To do this, we’ll need your help - starting in late August, product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories from US merchants may not appear in Product Search if your data feed does not include the necessary unique product identifiers, such as MPN, Brand, GTIN/UPC/EAN or ISBN. We will make similar changes to Product Search in the UK and Germany at a later date.

These attributes will not be required for your feed to process correctly, so any product-based ad format will continue to show and product offers in other categories will continue to be listed on Google Product Search. However, to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible, for as many categories as you can get this data. You can find unique product identifier information on Product Search product pages, under the “technical specifications” section for Electronics items, the “Tracks” or “Details” section for Media, and the “Overview” section for books.

For more details, including what specific identifiers you should include for each category of item, please see our Help Center.

Posted by Jia Sheng, Product Manager, Google Product Search

Update, July 23: For merchants in the UK and Germany, the changes mentioned above will occur on a different schedule from the US, and will begin with items in the Electronics category. Starting in the first months of 2011, listings for Electronics items in the UK and Germany that do not include appropriate unique product identifiers may not appear on Google Product Search. For these items, please include at least two of the following identifiers: MPN, EAN, Brand.