terrygraziano says

I used to be syndicated, now I'm not. Why? And will I be again soon?

-----

Hi terrygraziano, you're still syndicated.

Anyone who was syndicated before is still syndicated, though the Syndication page in your account may not reflect that right now if you haven't made a change to a listing since the migration occurred. We are fixing that now to avoid confusion.

Another quick way to tell if you're syndicated is to search for your shop name on www.google.com/products

Thanks,
Sean

Posted at 5:22 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

ScarfKnitter says

My items are all in Google Shopping but some are now showing the second and third pictures. Is this a bug or are they going to stay that way?

-----

A fix for this was deployed earlier today. We are now only sending the primary item listing image to Google Product Search.

If you notice this happening with any of your listings now, we recommend editing or deactivating and reactivating those particular listings to get the updates sent to Google Product Search. Updates should be reflected within 24 hours or so.

Thanks,
Sean

Posted at 5:27 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

AnyOldTime says

Why are so few of my items now in google shopping? I have over a hundred items and several showing are sold. And that leaves less than 25 active items. Also, no photos for a lot of them.

Thanks!!

----

Hi AnyOldTime,

The migration to Google's new (better, faster) API was just completed over the weekend. In your case it looks like you've added two new listings since the migration occurred for your shop. Any weirdness you see now would be for changes submitted to Google Product Search before the migration. If you like, you can deactivate your items and then reactivate them to get everything in order.

Sean

Posted at 5:45 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

AnyOldTime says

Do I have to edit my old items for them to show in google shopping? So they comply with The Questions? (who made/when made)?

thanks!!

-----

No, this is not necessary. Deactivating and then reactivating an older item listing is enough to get it submitted via the new API.

Sean

Posted at 7:08 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

penorus says

Hi Sean,
How come I'm still seeing several old sold listings...some have been sold weeks ago?

----

If you're seeing sold listings on Google Product Search, they were submitted before the migration occurred this past weekend. If you would like to correct discrepancies like this, you can deactivate and then reactivate your item listings to make sure you're fully up and running with the new API.

Sean

Posted at 7:11 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

Fellie: We've modified the way we send listings to Google so that, from now on, Google will always display the primary listing image. Moving forward, this will be the case for all listings. If you deactivate and reactive a listing, it'll go back to using the primary image. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

A number of you have asked about getting syndicated, and why you cannot currently get Google Product Search syndication. Unfortunately, Google has a fixed limit on the number of shops that they will accept for syndication. This number has recently been increased somewhat, and once the current transition is complete, we'll have slots to add a fair number of new shops into the program.

Posted at 9:21 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

dayslonggone says

Sean,

Why are my items showing the word "used" next to the price?

Many of my items are showing this not, all but, many!

I asked earlier...but, you may have missed this. I have not seen this before.

Thanks,
Gwynne

-------

Hi Gwynne,

Items tagged "vintage" or in the Vintage category currently receive the "used" designation on Google Product Search.

The condition attribute is required by Google Product Search and there are three options: new, used and refurbished:

www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160606

Designating vintage items (older than 20 years) as "used" was a recommendation from Google.

Previously this only applied to items in the Vintage category. However our item listing process is changing and designations like "vintage" will eventually become attributes on Etsy rather than categories.

If an item of yours is not more than 20 years old, please do not use the "vintage" tag.

If you did this by mistake and want to have the "used" designation removed from your items on Google Product Search, just remove the vintage tag from those items. By editing listings, updates are automatically sent to Google Product Search.

Sean

Posted at 10:16 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

DiBeauDesigns says

Sean, about the free shipping? Does this mean that people with free shipping will have more relevance/preference now? I'm not sure what you meant and why it was significant.

-----

I was just noting that when you perform a search on Google Product Search today, there is checkbox available to filter your results by items with free shipping. This doesn't mean that items with free shipping carry more weight on Google Product Search, just that this is an option that Google knows shoppers care about and thinks is worth surfacing. That could change and shipping options may be surfaced in other ways on Google Product Search in the future.

Shipping will become a required attribute on Google Product Search in September.

Sean

Posted at 10:22 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

cindylouwho2 says

are we now feeding Google shopping more than the first 3 tags? Because some of ClosetGothic's items use the word vintage or antique after the first 3 tags.

-----

The first three tags of an item are used for Google's product type attribute, which is required. We do this because most items on Etsy do not fit neatly into the Google Product Search taxonomy and never will. You can browse the Google Product Search taxonomy here to see what I mean:

www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160081

The confusion here is understandable, and I think arises because tags and categories play a different role in Etsy search than they do in Google Product Search.

Tags and categories play an important role in Etsy search today. You can use a tag on Etsy and come up under an Etsy search for that keyword. This may not always be the case and there is a great deal of a experimentation and research underway now to revamp Etsy search and make it much more effective for shoppers.

Tags play a different role in Google Product Search -- they function solely as attributes. They do not come into play as keywords on Google Product Search the way they do on Etsy; rather, they can affect how an item is displayed or surfaced in terms of things like condition. There is an option today to filter Google Product Search results by "New Items."

So yes, Google Product Search sees more than the first three tags of an Etsy item, but they do not treat tags the way Etsy treats tags.

Sean

Posted at 10:56 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

cindylouwho2 says

I'm not confused about the difference between tags & product attributes; I am confused because tags after the first 3 are being used as any type of attribute for google shopping now.

We've been told repeatedly by Etsy admin if you want to use any words that google shopping dislikes, like "free shipping", to put them after the first 3 tags. If google shopping is now reading those, or has been for a while, then that is an announcement that needs to be made to everyone. A lot of people are going to need to make decisions about tagging free shipping on Etsy, for example, if it will get them excluded from the google shopping listings.

------

You are right, Cindy. This is new, and part of the migration to Google's new Content API for Shopping.

If your shop has access to Google Product Search Syndication, we do not recommend tagging your item with something like "freeshipping." This has been utilized in promotions on Etsy in the past, but is not likely to be done again.

In this area, Etsy is moving in the direction Google Product Search is moving. Providing shipping information in a structured way, and surfacing those options in a structured way for shoppers, is really the way to go. Tagging an item with "freeshipping" is a workaround that worked in the absence of this, but is not the best option going forward.

Shipping information belongs in the shipping section of your item listing.

Sean

Posted at 11:20 pm Jun 27, 2011 EDT

@flirtbuttons, BerkanasGarden and tippleandsnack:

You were syndicated at one point but then dropped at some point a while back, possibly after returning from vacation. That won't happen again with the new API, and vacation mode no longer has any impact on Google Product Search Syndication. Your shops have been syndicated again.

Sean

Posted at 9:52 pm Jun 28, 2011 EDT

Hi all,

We are planning to add support for about 100,000 more shops over the next few weeks.

Established, active shops with sales and good feedback will get the priority. It's never been random or solely about seniority but about supporting shops that have found customers and earned their goodwill.

As we've said, we would happily add support for every shop immediately if we could, and we working toward that by getting hard-working sellers represented on Google Product Search and helping them be successful there. Shops that are syndicated now will build the case for allowing all of Etsy to be represented there.

Sean

Posted at 10:16 pm Jun 28, 2011 EDT

Hi all,

If you were syndicated at some point previously but dropped inexplicably, all is well again. Dannel (DeMarko) just took care of a migration for shops affected by this issue. We received a number of convos about this.

More shops will be syndicated soon.

Thanks,
Sean

Posted at 1:02 pm Jul 7, 2011 EDT

cindylouwho2 says

Hi Sean

Could we please get an answer on why sold items are continuing to show up in our feeds? This isn't just things that sold before you completed the migration; recent sales aren't disappearing as well.

Also, sold & relisted items are often showing the wrong photos; this is also items that were sold after the migration was complete.

Thank you!

------

Hi Cindy,

Any sold items from syndicated shops visible on Google Product Search right now would be items submitted before the migration to the new API. They should disappear with 30 days, and the issue shouldn't arise again. If you have a specific example in mind, feel free to convo with details and we'll take a look.

Items with incorrect photos were submitted early on as part of the migration to the new API, but that was fixed within a day or so (we now only send one listing photo to Google Product Search). If your shop is affected by this, you can deactivate and reactivate your items to get them resubmitted with the primary photo displayed.

The shops that will be added next will not need to do any deactivating or reactivating -- all of their past listings will be submitted automatically. And we're working on getting many more shops added.

Thanks,
Sean

Posted at 6:56 pm Jul 7, 2011 EDT

I'm not sure how interesting this is to people still paying attention to this thread, but in comparison to the old Google Base APIs, A LOT more listings are making it into Product Search successfully with the new APIs. In other words, not only was the migration successful, it's also been more effective at syndicating your products.

As several of you have pointed out in this thread, Google will sometimes reject a listing once it makes it to Product Search, we have no control over the criterion it uses to do this (things like finding "Free Shipping" in the listing title as cindylouwho2 points out). What we do have control over is doing our best to represent your listing in a way that Google Product Search understands.

Items that have Vintage as the first tag (i.e. are in the Vintage category) or were marked as being made at least 20 years before have to be marked as "used" to comply with Google's policies. There was a bug with this earlier, but I just deployed a fix.

Posted at 7:19 pm Jul 18, 2011 EDT

I think I'll take this opportunity to explain something I've been meaning to for a while but didn't sit down and try to explain it until now. You might find it educational or you might find it a bit technical, you decide I suppose.

When an engineer such as myself makes a change to services and platform that we call Etsy, it's fairly easy for us to make changes to data we have stored on our servers, in fact, many of the changes of the past year have been related to making a lot of our existing data easier to move, faster to serve and easier to scale (you might be interested in this post from several day's ago by Seth, who works on our performance team www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/tech-update-faster-and-faster/).

However, Google Product Search is one of those rare moments on Etsy (as a service and platform) when we come across a service that has data that we don't have control over. To interact with services such as these Google provides what is called an API (application programming interface). We have one too www.etsy.com/developers, this way, other developers can interact with our data.

Since we can't go over hundreds of thousands or millions of listings each time we deploy changes to our Product Search API code (the code that sends your listings to Google), we have to rely on listing state changes (such as deactivating/reactivating listings, new listings, expiring listings, etc) in order to limit the number of interactions we have with Google to some sane amount.

If you find your listings on Google Product Search aren't what you expect them to be or show some error, try deactivating and reactivating them and waiting a bit to see if they improve. If the problem continues, then we'd definitely like to know and it would be great if you could contact support at www.etsy.com/help/contact

Posted at 9:26 pm Jul 18, 2011 EDT

Hi!
I added a whole lot of sellers to syndication last night. Unfortunately, halfway through, the Google API decided that I was sending them too many requests all at once. I know what happened and am working to get it fixed, I just need to send the requests in smaller batches.

What this means for you: please sit tight, if you have a syndication link currently, your syndication will be activated hopefully by the end of the day.

Thanks for all the patience, if you have any more questions, I would recommend contacting our support team.

Posted at 2:10 pm Jul 28, 2011 EDT

Ah, I've hit a snag for the moment. Rest assured, the people who have the Syndication link currently but the page doesn't say you are syndicated, you are in the group to be syndicated as soon as I clear it up.

Posted at 3:41 pm Jul 28, 2011 EDT

jackiedretroboutique says

I just checked and I'm syndicated now! Very thankful :)

Question: why do most of my photos appear a bit fuzzy and out of focus on google product search? I use a fairly high resolution when taking pictures, typically around 1000 x 1000. Any thoughts?

Also, only a small fraction of my items are showing.. I realize I may have to de- and re-activate my listings, as has been suggested. But I'm just wondering about the timing of my syndication.. whether it was done before or after the migration to the new API last weekend, and whether that would make a difference to my having to de- re-activate?

------------------------------------------------
I'm not sure about the image fuzziness, Google seems to compress a copy of the primary image when uploading to Product Search, so that might be why?

You were syndicated in the group yesterday, as of right now, I'm seeing all the items in your shop successfully submitted.

Before I get individual requests for checking which I won't be able to answer, I wanted to repost the link to these help topics: etsy.me/kZboik

Please note the bit here www.etsy.com/help/article/258 about what Google Product Search does not permit.

Posted at 5:28 pm Jul 29, 2011 EDT

MerCurios says

How often are we "syndicated" with Google? For example, if I updated existing listings or added new ones will this eventually be updated in the Google Shopping Search.

I'm sure the spiders crawl at their own pace, so one can not say exactly how often. I just want to be reassured that the New & Edits are eventually being crawled & syndicated.

Hope I am making sense.

xo,
MJ

----------

Edits to listings should be reflected on Google Product Search within 48 hours, though usually much sooner. Lately, with the new APIs, we've been seeing updates reflected on Google Product Search within a few hours.

Sean

Posted at 6:08 pm Jul 30, 2011 EDT

jinxxy says


Admin
DeMarko says

Ah, I've hit a snag for the moment. Rest assured, the people who have the Syndication link currently but the page doesn't say you are syndicated, you are in the group to be syndicated as soon as I clear it up.

Posted at 3:41 pm Jul 28, 2011 EDT - Report this post

__________________________________________

Can we get an update, please?
==========================
Yes! The situation remains the same (still waiting on a response from Google). I've been working on fulfilling the other September requirements for Google Product Search items in the meanwhile, I will have the tax settings in place (for those of you who apply taxes to US shipping) by the end of the day hopefully. What this means for you is that your listings will continue to be syndicated properly in Google Product Search.

Note: if you are someone who makes clothing, please take a moment to fill out the new Recipient attribute in your listings that Eric announced here: www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/8760881/

Sorry about the delay, I wish I could poke someone with a stick to make this process go faster.

Posted at 12:11 pm Aug 2, 2011 EDT

MySweetieBean says

DeMarko says Highlighted Post

Note: if you are someone who makes clothing, please take a moment to fill out the new Recipient attribute in your listings that Eric announced here: www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/8760881/

Sorry about the delay, I wish I could poke someone with a stick to make this process go faster.

--------------

Demarko, a few of the clothing items I have go across the recipient attributes. A few dresses I make go from toddler/girl/teen for the same price. There are several more items I have yet to list that go from size 1T to 14 for the same price.

There are a few hats I crochet that have multiple recipient attributes for the same price.

Will this affect whether the item is syndicated? If it doesn't have a recipient picked for clothing, will that item be rejected?

If so, does this mean that I will have to list the same item four times (even tho it is the same price) so I can have my listings included?

--------
My understanding is that, starting September 22nd, if an item in the Apparel category is uploaded to to Google Product Search without those attributes, there is a chance it may not show up in a search.

We are talking with Google about an exception to this rule (especially the one about sizes) because of the uniqueness of our marketplace in comparison to the rest of the marketplaces indexed by Google Shopping.

To Google, there are really only 2 age groups: Adults and Kids. On Etsy, Adults are the Recipient attributes: Women, Teen Girls, Men, Teen Boys, Unisex Adults, Teens and Kids are the attributes: Girls, Baby Girls, Boys, Baby Boys, Children, Babies. See Eric Stephens's post here: www.etsy.com/teams/7716/announcements/discuss/8760881/ about picking Recipient attributes.

Once we enable size attributes, I am pushing so that we have "Variants available", meaning, a listing is available in several different sizes so that we can use this specification of the Google API (www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=1347943) and so that sellers don't have to list things individually by size.

Posted at 8:32 pm Aug 4, 2011 EDT

Hi! I've added the rest of the batch of sellers that we originally had planned to add before Google imposed their account limit. Let me know if you see any *technical* issues, although I don't expect any to arise from this. I also mentioned in another thread that I fixed a bug where sold out items weren't being removed properly when sold out or updated properly when one (1) of their quantities got sold.

Happy shopkeeping!
Dannel

Posted at 8:39 pm Aug 10, 2011 EDT

I've added more accounts! I'll continue adding as many accounts as our Google Merchant account allows.

This is an ongoing process, please report if you see any bugs in the bug forums and the mods will make sure I see it.

Posted at 3:56 pm Aug 17, 2011 EDT