Like so many, I’m trying to get to grips with google free listings before I spend some actual cash on google ads and would really appreciate some guidance from someone who could help me. My shopify site sells childrens books.
My google merchant account is showing that most of my products are active and green (700 out of 720) although the individual products on my Shopify product page still says I need to provide gtin nos. When I try and look for my books online very few actually are findable..around 1 in 40? I’ve set the Custom product field to False and manually inserted the google product code, which for books is 543543. I don’t really understand why some listings are showing and not others and why so few?
So my questions are -
Is it normal to have so few of my products actually searchable on google free ads? Why some and. Not others? Is it a ‘quality’ of my site to google thing?
Do I ignore the gtin request on shopify and assume the gmc info is correct?
Is there anything I still might be doing wrong or anything else I might have missed out re: my google feed to maximise my listings?
Are my listings enhanced or basic listings? How can I tell?
Is this code the best category code for children’s books?
Apologies for the long post, if anyone can help with even one of these points it would be much appreciated!
Seeing your own listings does not mean someone else sees the same exact results. Results are linked to over 200 different factors, include your historic search behavior and patterns. For example if you search a lot and don’t click on a listing, Google may think you are not interested, and thus tries to show you something else.
To increase your quality, follow the requirements and recommendations here: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112?hl=en
All products that have a barcode, must submit this value.
If your listings are enhanced, you will see that it is eligible. Go to Google Merchant Center and on the dashboard you will see enhanced listings graph, if its green your all good.
Barcodes, are stamped on the product itself, so make sure you use the same exact value.
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Thanks for the reply Emmanuel,
It looks as though I should ignore the gtin flag on my products then as I have inserted the relevant barcode products on them all.
It still doesn’t feel as if my products are showing correctly on google. I understand what you are saying regarding individual searching habits, but if I’m looking for something very specific such as a book with a unique title, surely google should show all the available book options, especially if nobody else has another one for sale?
Is it worth reaching out to google perhaps?
Thanks, Mark
Do not ignore warnings in GMC. If you see warnings or errors, that means you should resolve the issues. For example if you are using the free shopping app, then this app is pretty broken and does not submit barcodes.
If you are searching for a specific result, or any search term, then Google will not or most likely not show all products, but will show all products that are eligible to be listed and have a high enough ranking.
If you see zero results in shopping ads for what you are searching for, and instead see irrelevant ads, most likely your data feed quality is not high enough or missing data.
Make sure to follow: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112?hl=en
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GMC is showing all is ok..apart from a couple of problems with my logo, it is the Shopify side, so I’m guessing I should trust the GMC.
It is annoying that Shopify says one thing and google the other. Is there any indication of when Shopify might be resolving the issue of having to put FALSE in the custom product field to get things working?
It looks as if I need to work on the quality of my listings in order to rank them higher then.
For Shopify technical issues, contact Shopify support and report the issue.