Google Makes 2018 Product Feed Specification Update

Every year, Google makes changes to the “product data specification” for Google Merchant Center. As most online merchants know, Google Merchant Center acts as the control center for your physical products in AdWords.

Google’s intent is to always create a better shopping experience for it’s users.  Starting June 25th 2018, Google has made the following changes to the “product data specification”.

Long Titles and Descriptions Truncation: Previously if your title and description attributes were outside of Google’s predefined limits, it caused your item to be disapproved.  Now, Google will just truncate the excess text and approve your item.  If the values are truncated, you will receive a warning in Merchant Center, but your item will not be disapproved.

Condition: The condition attribute is no longer required. If you don’t submit a condition, Google will assume the condition is “New”.  However, if you do sell refurbished or used, you must use the condition attribute to prevent a warning.

Cost of Goods Sold: Google has added “cost_of_goods_sold” as an attribute.  If you know the cost of your items, you can populate this field and you will get better reporting and the ability to maximize profitability.

Size, Color, Link: Products with more than one size, color or link attributes will receive warnings.  If your product is multicolored, you will still be able to specify more than one color value using slashes and hyphens but you may not use  commas.  If you product falls into various ranges of sizes, use a range value rather than repeating the Size, Color, or Link attribute.

AdWords Redirect: As of Feb 1, 2019, the redirect link for AdWords tracking will need to direct to the same domain that is shown in the link and mobile_link attributes.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact us or if you are interested in turning on shopping feeds for your store, please feel free to fill out the form below.

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