Google announced changes coming for merchants who submit product data to the Google Merchant Center for inclusion in Google Product Search.
The changes are:
For Feeds Targeting the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany:
- Unique Product Identifiers [required for most categories]: Starting May 3, we will require unique identifiers for all products except apparel and one-of-a-kind items. Products without unique product identifiers may not be listed in Google Product Search, though the feed may not be disapproved.
- Shipping Information [required]: We will begin requiring shipping information for Google Product Search on June 6th. After that date, we may disapprove feeds from accounts that do not include this information.
For Feeds Targeting the United States
- Tax Information [required]: We will be making this change on June 6th; after that date, product listings that do not include tax information at the account level, or in the "tax" attribute, may be rejected.
- New Sale Price Attributes [recommended]: We're adding two attributes to the United States Product Search feed specification, "sale price" and "sale price effective date." These attributes are recommended for the items that you have put on sale, but are not required. If you do include these new attributes, you should continue to provide the "price" attribute with the non-sale price from your website.
For more details, see the Google Merchant Blog or ask in the forums.
Forum discussion at Google Merchant Help.
