Question About Sales Channel "Google & Youtube" / Removing Product Prices from Search Result !

[LooMor]

Hi,
I setup a store for a client and would like some clarifications on the "Google & Youtube" sales channel...

First, a little background... The shop is visible to all however I am using an app to hide prices, we want prices to only be visible to logged in users. Anyone can create an account however we have another app that we use to manage account validation because the accounts need to be approved manually before they are active since we only sell to B2B customer and the manufacturer has strict limitations that don't allow sharing prices publicly.

Now we do have the "Google & Youtube" app installed, this app was needed because we want to track analytics data and this app is required for that, to be clear we very much WANT our products to be found in google search results (however not in google "shopping" results though), but we don't want prices to be visible in search results. Since I do have this app installed, it automatically added the Google & Youtube Sales Channel in shopify and all products were assigned to it, however we did NOT create a Google Merchant Center account, so I assumed google wouldn't have any product data feed...

We initially ran into some issues because although the price hiding app and account creation apps were working perfectly, somehow google was still able to find the price data from our products and was displaying the prices under the meta descriptions of products in search results. It seems google was grabbing the price from the product rich snippet structured data that was generated by shopify (or the Google & Youtube app?)...

Our solution was to modify the source code of templates to remove any and all reference to prices using an IF statement (if logged in keep the code, otherwise price code is removed). This worked, however the issue is that any time we do a theme update we have to get the developer to re-apply all the code changes everywhere.

My Question:
If I keep the "Google & Youtube" app installed but remove all my products from the "Google & Youtube" sales channel, what will the impact be exactly?

• Will google completely de-index all my products pages (which would be bad)
  OR
• Will google simply not try to find and display the product rich snippet data (price etc) for each product (Which would be Good and perhaps would essentially achieve the same as what we did by removing the price code in the template but would have the added benefit of allowing us to update the theme without having to modify source code everything everytime to remove prices?).

Any insight?

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Don't confuse Google Search Console with the app Google & Youtube.

Google Search Console is where you can see products indexed, and these pages are indexed from the sitemap. Not the Google and Youbute app.

Simply make sure Google Merchant Center is disconnected in the app, and all is good.

[sampymishra]

Hi @LooMor 

If you only need the Google and Youtube apps for analytics, disconnect your Google merchant center from the app. Go to the app>settings>click on the disconnect button. 

Let me know if it works for you.

[ilanadavis]

@LooMor 

You can remove all products from the Google Sales Channel and disconnect your Merchant Center from the app if you are not running product ads.

>Will google completely de-index all my products pages
No. The Google Sales Channel has nothing to do with indexing pages or your content. For most stores, this is the connection to Merchant Center and Google Analytics.

>Will google simply not try to find and display the product rich snippet data (price etc) for each product

No. The sales channel does not do anything with Rich Results regarding price.

If Google is picking up pricing for Rich Results, that's usually from one of two things:

1. Product structured data

2. Prices are in the HTML somewhere

Even if you remove the product structured data, if the price exists anywhere in the HTML, Google's algorithm may choose to include the price in search results. Setting the price to zero will not help either. You'll need to remove all price information in the code.

You can try the data-nosnippet attribute, but make sure you fully read their docs. I cannot caution you enough with this but it's something to explore. As with anything Google-related, it's all a recommendation and they may choose to pull in data that is available to them based on their algorithm. Nothing is guaranteed.

[jayanetty]

Hi @ilanadavis ,

I have a similar/not so similar case, we currently use Google & Youtube app to sync data with Merchant center/Google Shopping. We need the products to list on Shopping, have ads and have analytics.

We currently have a member price stored in variant metafields that is being applied using scripts. Issue is that, member price is shown in the Merchant center and Shopping listing.  Is there a way to assign metafield as price? We do also have structured data (schema) defined with metafield's price set as the price. But looks like only Google search console is taking that data.

Thank you,
Jayanetty

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Please note that members only pricing is not allowed on Google Shopping. A price must be available to all.

I recommend that you unpublish these variants in your app by clicking on manage products.

[jayanetty]

Hi @EmmanuelFlossie ,

Thank you for the quick response. It's a membership is free, so it's a way to convince customers to sign-up. 

Wouldn't unpublishing remove them from Shopping listing? 

If I disconnect Merchant center from the Google & Youtube app, will Merchant center take product information from data structures by default?

Thanks,
Jayanetty