How To Get Your Products Into Google’s Shopping Graph

According to McKinsey e-commerce has been 10 years’ growth in 3 months during COVID-19. 

This has led Google to enter the online shopping industry head-on, going head-to-head with giant Amazon. To challenge Amazon, Google presents itself as a cheaper, less restrictive option for independent sellers. And it is focusing on driving traffic to sellers’ sites, not selling its version of products, as Amazon does. To increase its ability to sell products, Google has launched a series of updates, also aimed at helping small businesses gain visibility for their products. 

We’re advancing our plans to make it free for merchants to sell on Google. Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings, helping merchants better connect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google. 

With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship, but are less discoverable online. Bill Ready – President, Commerce (April 2020)

It is a great innovation. This new approach marks the overcoming of the pay-to-play model of Google. Before selling products on Google, you had to invest money and put in so much effort that small businesses could not appear on Google. With the free listing, Google allows everyone to sell their products on Google property.

Product data on Google

Typically, you’d only share product data for products you wanted to promote on Google services. This changed in 2020 with the introduction of several free offerings, and these continue to evolve. Here’s what you need to know for 2024:

1. Free listings on the Google Shopping tab: It’s still free to participate in the Google Shopping tab, allowing you to showcase your products to a wider audience of potential buyers.
2. Enhanced organic search results: Product data from Google Merchant Center is still used to enrich organic search results. This helps Google present your products more accurately to users searching for relevant terms. However, Google’s understanding of product information from your website is constantly improving.

Why is accurate product data still important?

Even with Google’s advancements in extracting information from web pages, providing accurate product data through Merchant Center offers several advantages:

• Increased control and accuracy: You have more control over the information displayed about your products, ensuring it’s up-to-date and aligns with your marketing strategy.
• Eligibility for richer search results: Complete and accurate product data can improve your chances of appearing in richer search results with features like product ratings, pricing, and availability.
• Stand out from the competition: Detailed product information can give you an edge over competitors with less informative listings.

In conclusion, while Google’s ability to understand product information from your website is improving, providing accurate product data through Google Merchant Center remains a valuable strategy for maximizing the visibility and appeal of your products in search results.

What is Google Shopping Graph?

“Building on the Knowledge Graph, the Shopping Graph brings together information from websites, pricing, reviews, videos and, most importantly, product data we receive directly from brands and retailers,” said Billy Ready. The AI-enhanced model works in real-time and shows users relevant listings as they shop on Google.

Similar to Google’s Knowledge Graph, the Shopping Graph links information about entities and influences what may appear in search results. You can imagine the Knowledge Graph as a giant encyclopedia that connects information about everything under the sun. The Shopping Graph, on the other hand, is like a massive product catalog with detailed entries for each item.

Google Shopping Graph is growing. Billy Ready said, “We’ve seen a 70% increase in the size of our product catalog and an 80% increase in merchants on our platform”.

The sources from which the data for the Google Shopping Graph are taken are the most diverse. Among them:

• Youtube videos
• Manufacturer Websites
• Online shops and product detail pages (PDPs)
• Google Merchant Center
• Product tests
• Product reviews

How Do You Get Your Products Into Google’s Shopping Graph?

To increase the sales for both your E-Commerce website and/or local retail shops, your goal is to help Google understand the products that you’re selling. We can do this by providing accurate product data using both push and pull strategies:

1. Push: we feed product data using Google Merchant Center.
2. Pull: we let Google crawl the structured data on our webpages.

Google is using this data to present products to end-users using special formatting on Google Search, Google Image Search, Google Maps, and now Google Lens. The aim of Google is to guide the consumer throughout his/her journey in making informative purchasing decisions. In the context of Google Search, product data is also aggregated into product knowledge panels that are designed to provide shoppers with an eye-bird overview of all the characteristics, how-tos, pricing details, and reviews. 

Google stores all of this data in its Shopping Graph made of 2.4 billion products and constantly evolves how data is used on its various surfaces to be more relevant for the end-user. 

Learn more about how to get product data into Google Shopping Graph, by watching the video.

Data harmonization

Data synchronization is essential. A lack of it can create confusion and risk your products not ranking well on Google for one or more specific queries. 

So you must make sure where your product information is coming from and make sure you’re using Merchant Feed for structured data. We go from there to enrich it with information that Google will appreciate. 

On some occasions, you’ll have to make strategic choices about updating your data, deciding to put some information only on your website or only in the Merchant Feed. An example of this is the “in stock” value. As with other values that can change often, it is more beneficial to keep the information only on one side to avoid discrepancies or differences in updates that can negatively affect listing on Google. 

Data reconciliation 

A unique product identifier (UPI) is a number or code that uniquely identifies the product in the eyes of the customer. A UPI helps us identify a specific type of product or a color variation for that product worldwide. 

As of 2018, UPIs became mandatory to list products in Google Merchant Feed. But the real change happened in 2021 when unique product identifiers became mandatory for free listening on Google. 

Google said that “different products using the same GTIN with the same variant attributes will be considered ambiguous and will be disapproved.” Additionally, Google said that “if a group of products is identified as duplicates, only one will remain active and eligible to show in free listings.”

Adding structured data to your product page, you will be sure to have UPIs for each product you want to sell.

Optimizing Your Google Merchant Feed for Enhanced E-commerce SEO

In our approach to improving SEO for ecommerce, we place significant emphasis on optimizing and improving the Google Merchant Feed, a crucial component for companies aiming to thrive in the digital marketplace and gain access to Google’s free listings through the Shopping Graph.

Our strategy involves meticulously adding structured data to your product listings, ensuring that each item is accurately represented and easily discoverable, packed with all the information needed to appear in Google’s Shopping Graph.

By integrating with the Google Merchant Center, we streamline the feed management process, making it more efficient and effective. Our method not only facilitates the creation of a comprehensive Product Knowledge Graph, but also ensures that your products stand out in search results.

This integration enables a continuous flow of accurate and detailed product information, directly influencing how your products are presented and perceived in the vast online shopping landscape. Through our customized solutions, we aim to elevate your online presence, making your products more visible and attractive to potential customers.

Do you want to get your products into Google Shopping Graph? Start building your Product Knowledge Graph today, talk with our SEO expert.

How Google Uses Structured Data And Google Merchant Center Data

The following are examples of how Google uses structured data embedded in web pages and Google Merchant Center data for different experiences. Note that experiences may vary by country, device, and other factors.

Best Practices For Ecommerce Sites In Google Search

A critical aspect of growing your online business is getting discovered in the search, and Google can help shoppers with this during their buying journey. 

For this, Google provides you with these best practices that can help you. When you share data about your products, Google can more easily find and analyze your content, giving you the ability to appear in Google Search and other Google spaces. This allows your online shop to have excellent visibility and be found more easily by users searching for products or services like your company’s. 

Do you want to get your products into Google Shopping Graph? Talk with our SEO experts.

Google Duplex is the new technology developed by Google to automate certain tasks, such as booking a table at a restaurant, booking a flight, or speeding up your customers’ shopping experience. Learn how to use Google Duplex for e-commerce, check out our latest web story.

Learn more about product structured data and how to build a multilingual product knowledge graph for your e-commerce website by reading our article.