Nov 25, 2011 at 10:13am ET by Greg Sterling

We're already well into Black Friday. In many US stores the frenzy began last night at 10 pm or midnight (as opposed to the normal 4 am door-busting start time). People barely had time to overcome the sleep-inducing effects of L-tryptophan before getting out into the melee. And the word "melee" aptly describes the scene in a Southern California Wal-Mart store as one woman unleashed pepper spray on her fellow shoppers to prevent them from getting in her way. Today and for the next few days people will be using a wide range of tools and resources -- hopefully not pepper spray -- to help them [...]

Despite New Rules, Google Product Search Merchants Not Providing Accurate Tax & Shipping Costs

Nov 17, 2011 at 1:34pm ET by Matt McGee

Shoppers using Google Product Search are sometimes being misled by incorrect tax and shipping information in search results. And that's despite Google's recent crackdown on merchants who either omit tax and shipping details, or list false/incorrect data in their product feeds. Back on March 14th, Google announced new rules for Product Search merchants. Among those new rules were requirements that merchants include tax and shipping costs in their product feeds. The original deadline for this was June 6th, but on June 1st Google extended the deadline until September 1st. Now, more than two [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: Product Search | Top News

Google Gets Into Ratings Game With Trusted Stores

Oct 3, 2011 at 11:10am ET by Greg Sterling

Google is launching an e-commerce certification program this morning called "Trusted Stores." The company says that it's trying to give consumers greater confidence to buy products online. In very limited beta right now, qualifying e-commerce stores will be able to display a "Google Trusted Store" badge. What's more interesting is that Google is backing its program with $1,000 in consumer purchase protection (more on that in a minute). To qualify as a Trusted Store etailers must apply and voluntarily provide a range of data to Google. Google believes getting data directly from online retail [...]

Related Topics: Features: General | Google: Product Search | Top News

Google Overhauls Product Search, Plans To Close Boutiques.com

Sep 22, 2011 at 5:46pm ET by Matt McGee

Google's new Product Search home page is very un-Googley. Dare I say that it actually looks … stylish? It's dominated by an oversized image area that changes through a series of five different products. There are short text descriptions for each on the left of the images, and then a couple rows of featured products below the fold. It looks like an actual major department store website. (Mind you, there's extremely little text on the page, so if you're an online retailer, this would not be considered "best practices" when it comes to retail SEO. But it's certainly much prettier than [...]

Related Topics: Google: Product Search | Top News

Update Your Google Product Feeds By September 22nd

Sep 5, 2011 at 2:46pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has posted a reminder that the updates to the Google Product search feeds is just around the corner. If you do not update your product feeds with the new guidelines by September 22nd, Google may suspend your account. Google said: As we announced in July, the new Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies will go into effect on September 22, 2011. After this date, accounts that do not comply with the new requirements may be suspended. For more details on those changes, I recommend you ready our post from July. Related Stories: Google Product Search Changes Feed S [...]

Related Topics: Google: Base | Google: Product Search

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