Google Shopping feed is a file consisting of a list of items that uses various attributes that help in defining each one of the listed items in a unique way. It is simply information about your company’s products that are formatted in a specific way to help Google understand and read your data.

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Why should you create a feed for your eCommerce store?

Properly creating your feed is vital for these three reasons:

1. To make the products show up for the most relevant product search queries

This way, your product will be shown to people who really intend to purchase the product.

2. To make that prospective buyer click your shopping ad

When shown for relevant search queries, potential customers will be encouraged to click on your ads.

3. To Optimize your Google shopping ads easily

Optimizing your Google Shopping ads will help enhance your ad performance.

Google has a set of Google Shopping feed guidelines and specifications that you must go through before creating your Shopping Feeds.

Read on to find out more about Google Shopping guidelines and specifications. 

Google Shopping Feed Guidelines

Before you begin creating your own Google Merchant Center account, you will have to ensure that the company complies with all the guidelines given below:

1. Promote only items that are available for direct purchase

When promoting your products through online shopping, make sure each one of them is available for direct purchase. Affiliate or pay-per-click links to your products should not be promoted through Google shopping ads, except when you are a part of the Affiliate Advertising Beta or as a CSS (Comparison Shopping Service) in the EEA or Switzerland. Links included in the Google Shopping Ads must lead customers straight to the product page, allowing them to purchase the product.

2. At least one official language must be used

It is important to use the official language of the country you are planning on advertising your products. You could also use more than 1 official language, but when doing this, different product data can be submitted for each language and the links must go to websites that are in the same language.

You could use the same language for:

• Your website
• The product data you plan on submitting
• The language you choose when you register the product data 

3. Provide your customers with the return and refund policy

Before customers plan on purchasing products from your store, they should be allowed to view the return and refund policy. Therefore, make sure the policy is easy to find and understand, and even if your company does not offer refunds or returns, state that explicitly in your policy.

The policy must exactly explain how your company handles such situations, including:

1. What the customer should do when they need a refund or need to return a product
2. Under what circumstances does the company allow the user to return their product or get a refund
3. The timeframe in which a return is accepted by the store
4. When the refund can be expected by the customer

 4. User information must be collected securely and responsibly

When collecting personal information from your users, be extra careful. You should always follow the guidelines given below:

1. Never sell the contact information of the user
2. Credit card numbers and other personal information should be collected securely using an SSL-protected page
3. Images and personal information of the customers should not be used on ads without their permission.
4. The primary purpose of the website you make should not be to collect personal information from the customers.
5. Do not provide free products or incentives unless under these specific circumstances:
   1. As a reason for the marketing campaign
   2. With the purchase of an item

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5. Verify your website URL and claim it

In a search console, verify your domain and claim it to make sure the owner of the site is you and to prevent other people from claiming ownership over your site. You need to be able to upload essential files to your server or be able to edit the HTML of the website in order to verify your URL.

6. Website requirements

Google has a set of requirements that your site should meet. They check your website for a few basic requirements according to the Merchant Centre Program you are taking part in:

1. Include contact information that is accurate

Include accurate contact information on your websites such as a valid telephone number and email.

2. The website checkout process must be secure

Collection of any financial and personal information from the customer, as well as payment and transaction processing, should be done over SSL-protected, secure processing servers.

3. Provide a Return policy.

Return policies given on your website must be conspicuous and clear.

4. Billing terms and conditions.

The site must include clear and understandable billing terms and conditions.

5. Make sure your customers can easily complete the checkout process.

The checkout process must be complete. Therefore, make sure you are able to properly include items in the shopping cart and completely go through the checkout process without any problems.

7. Regularly log in to your Merchant Center account

It is best to log in to your Merchant Centre account regularly (at least once every 14 months) so that it remains active. This will also help Google know that your data is not outdated.

8. Ensure your product data complies with the Google product data specifications

Your product data has to be formatted to meet the product data specifications before you submit it through your Google Merchant Centre. Formatting guidelines are present in Google, and it clearly explains how the product data should be submitted in order to help them understand it better.

The specifications will have a lot of information and are it best to go through it before you begin the process to help you get a better understanding of what you will be eventually doing.

Google Shopping feed Specifications

With these google shopping feed specifications, the product information for various programs can be formatted. Formatting the data correctly will help you create unpaid listings and successful ads. This data is used by Google to ensure that your products are matched for the most relevant user searches.

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Required fields 

1. ID

What is ID in Google shopping feed?

The ID you select identifies the product and helps Google retrieve information that is product-specific. An ID helps distinguish each product and can be used to track the performance of the product.

Do’s

1. Each product should have a unique value. If possible, you could do this using the SKU of your company.
2. When updating product data, the ID must be the same.
3. Only valid Unicode characters should be used.
4. For the same product, use the same ID across languages or countries.

Don’ts

1. When creating the ID, do not use invalid characters like function, control, or private area characters. 

2. Title

What is Title in the Google shopping feed?

The Title is used to accurately identify the product that is being sold. It is one of the most important parts of your shopping ads Accurate and specific titles will help present the product for the most relevant search queries.

Do’s

1. The title can be matched from your page after accurately describing the product.
2. For variants, you could add a distinguishing feature like size or color.
3. Include “with contract” for mobile devices that are sold with a contract.
4. If the product is sold in installments in the United States, you could include “with payment plan”.
5. For Russia, at the beginning of the title, include the age rating for selling information products like books.

Don’ts

1. In the title, do not include gimmicky foreign characters, all capital letters, or promotional texts such as “Free Shipping”.

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3. Description

What is the Description of the Google shopping feed?

The description will contain information about the product itself. The Description will allow people to understand more about the product you are selling.

Do’s

1. Make sure the “description” accurately describes the product and matches it from the landing page.
2. It should only contain information about the product.
3. The description can be formatted using lists, line breaks, italics, etc.

Don’ts

1. It should not contain all capital letters, promotional texts, or gimmicky foreign characters.

4. Link

What is Link in the Google shopping feed?

When customers click on your ad, they will be taken straight to the product page. This is done with the help of the link attribute, using the URL of the landing page added in the link attribute.

Do’s

1. Ensure you include a verified domain name.
2. Always begin with “https” or “http”.
3. An encoded URL that complies with RFC 1738 or RFC 2396 can be used. For instance, a comma, in this type of URL, would be shown as “%2C”.

Don’ts

1. Do not link your page to an interstitial page (unless it is legally required).

5. Image_Link

What is image_link in Google shopping feed?

In the image_link attribute, include the main product image’s URL. This image will be shown in ads to potential customers.

Do’s

Image URL

1. Begin with “https” or “Http”.
2. Make sure it links to the main product image.
3. An encoded URL (one that complies with RFC 1738 or RFC 2396) must be used.
4. Make sure Google can crawl to the URL (robots.txt configuration allowing Googlebot-image and Googlebot).

Image

1. It must accurately display the product being sold.
2. An accepted format must be used: JPEG (.jpeg/.jpg), non-animated GIF (.gif), PNG (.png), TIFF (.tiff/.tif), and BMP (.bmp).
3. For products that do not belong to apparel, the image could be at least 100 X 100 pixels.
4. For apparel products, a picture of at least 250 X 250 pixels could be used.

Don’ts

1. Images you submit should not be larger than 64 megapixels and the files should not be larger than 16MB.
2. Do not submit a thumbnail or scale up the image.
3. Do not add borders, watermarks, or promotional texts. 

6. Availability

What is Availability in the Google shopping feed?

The availability attribute is to show which products are in stock and can be ordered to be shipped to the customers.

Do’s

1. The availability of the product must be accurately included and make sure you match the availability from the landing page.

Don’ts

1. Do not list products that are not available or cannot be shipped to the customers’ region.

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