Google Ads has introduced a new feature that automatically adds products from your website to your Merchant Center if your site uses structured data markup on all product landing pages. Here are the key details:
- Structured Data Markup: Google will crawl your website and add products to a new feed section if structured data markup is used.
- Scenarios:
- If you already use a feed, only missing products will be added.
- If you don't use a feed, all crawlable products will be added.
- Default Settings: Only Free Listings are enabled by default. You must manually enable this feature for Shopping Ads, Display, or Cloud.
How It Works
- Product Addition: Google automatically adds new products from your online store to Merchant Center.
- Verification: You need to verify and claim your online store's website in your Merchant Center account.
- Data Management: Manage what data is added and how it's used via the Data Sources tab.
- Duplicate Entries: If a product is both automatically found and uploaded via a feed, the uploaded version is kept.
Managing Automatically Added Product Data
There are 3 major settings for the “Found by Google” data source:
- Visibility: Control how automatically found products appear on Google. Hidden products won't show on the Shopping tab, Google Maps, YouTube, etc., but will still appear in Google Search.
- Shopping Ads: Option to include or exclude automatically added products in Shopping Ads.
- Product Removal: Remove products by selecting "Stop managing products" in the Action column. Products can be re-added by clicking "Start managing these products" when the data source is inactive.
Additional Notes
- Time Frame: Adding or removing products can take 4-8 hours to complete.
- Data Source Deletion: You can remove all automatically added products by deleting the relevant data source.
This update is significant for the Google Shopping sector and was initially announced to roll out on June 22nd but is already live. For more details, check out Google Merchant Center help.
