In preparation for one of Google’s Product Reviews Updates, Google announced its new Google Merchant Center Listing report. Their goal is to expand eligibility with Product structured data. Google stated on its Twitter:
So, let’s dig into the new Merchant Center Listing report and how this change will benefit more website owners.
Expanded Eligibility for Websites – No Longer Need a Google Merchant Center Account
I’m sure you’ve seen Google’s product listing in Search if you have personally looked up a product; they’ve been around for a while. Well, a change has come that benefits more website owners! Google now offers 2 categories of product experiences for search users:
- Merchant Listing Experiences: Useful for webpages that offer the ability to purchase an item directly on the page.
- Product Snippets: Will pull information from web pages with product information, even if you cannot buy directly from the page. The information can be pulled from a number a sites, pages that directly sell products, or even pages that publish product reviews.
The biggest change that this brings, per Google, is the ability for merchants to be “eligible for merchant listing experiences by providing product data on web pages without a Google Merchant Center account”. As long as they use proper Product structured data that is.
Enhanced Product Experiences Now in Search
The addition of Product Snippets opens up a new search experience for search users. How? Well, the ability to pull information from the webpage offers a new way for people searching for products to learn the most important information quickly. The type of information a user may see includes:
- Product details
- Price
- Availability
- Shipping Times
- Reviews/ratings
Now, users will see a combination of Merchant Listing Experiences and Product Snippets.
Example of Merchant Listing Experience:
Example of Product Snippet:
Overall, the Merchant Listing Experiences offers more enhanced experiences for users. Google has multiple sections on the SERP that showcase product listings:
- Sponsored: These are paid Ads/listings and are marked as “sponsored”.
- Popular Products: Free listings that pull products from all across the web.
- Shopping Knowledge Panel: Shows more information about a product when browsing product options.
- Google Lens: Ability to offer options similar to images taken on your phone or device.
New Search Console Reports
Since Google Merchant Center now offers two options for website owners, they also now offer two separate reports to help break down information. These reports provide you with a comprehensive overview of your site’s markup, highlighting any errors, warnings, or valid pages. It is a great tool to ensure that everything is functioning properly.
New Merchant Listings Report
The new Merchant Listing Reports do three things:
- Identifies structured data issues for free listing experiences in search results.
- Relevant to pages that sell products.
- Covers the wider range of schema.org structured data properties and types.
Product Snippets Report
The Product Snippets Reports replaces the previous Product structured data report and also:
- Identifies structured data issues for product snippets in search results.
- Relevant to pages that share product review information or aggregate product data from multiple sites. Note that pages selling products may also include product reviews.
- Shows adjustments related to the separation of merchant listing validations into a dedicated report.
Which Report to Choose?
Google breaks this down very simply:
If you are a merchant with an online store, you should:
- Check the merchant listings report for your pages selling products.
- If you publish product reviews on pages that don’t sell products, also check the Product snippets report.
If you don’t sell products online but still publish pages with Product structured data:
- Check the Product snippets report.
Product Structured Data
Remember, people/businesses that sell products can benefit from these new experiences even if they don’t use Google Merchant Center. The addition of Product Snippets will allow products to be seen in more places and with greater detail than ever before. However, keep in mind that care must be taken to properly setup Product structured data on your pages.
Google delves into greater detail about Product structured data in their blog, including examples. So, be sure to check it out and ensure you are setting it up correctly. Better yet, you can check your page’s Product structured data by using the Rich Results Test.
Don’t Miss Out On A Sale
It’s important to stay up-to-date on Google’s changes so you can take advantage of new opportunities. The New Merchant Center Listing Report is beneficial to both website owners and users/potential customers who are searching for products. It gets more options in front of searchers, and may even show them your products! Woohoo!
If you are having trouble setting up your listings correctly, or more likely, understanding how Product structured data works, then it’s good you’ve happened across this blog post. The Cyberlicious® team lives and breathes all things marketing, including the ever-important SEO. Your answers and solution lie in a free consultation, so, don’t hesitate to reach out!