More is afoot in Google’s recent increase in editorial checks and quality controls in their Merchant Centre.
We’ve been saying for a while that things are bubbling under with the GMC. Affiliate listings are being purged, product submissions being reviewed (we think) much more closely and a lot more detailed checks are being done on product entries.
The latest changes have just been announced to Electronics product submissions, where starting in the first months of 2011, they are making some changes to how products in the Electronics category may appear in Google Product Search. In order to aid the user search, Google are stating that suppliers of data then include at least two of the following three unique product identifiers: MPN, Brand, and EAN.
While these attributes will not be required for the feed to process correctly, if you don’t include them, chances are that your products will not show often/(if at all).
So, forewarned is forearmed. Get that data into your product database now and included in your submissions now. Natch, Feed Manager is already submitting this if it exists for any client and the longer your products are submitted including the data, the better the long term benefits to your listing.