Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What affects the Google Merchant listing position under the Relevance Filter?
-
Hi,
I set-up a UK Google Merchant feed about 8months ago now which is automated for around 25K products. I am trying to work out why some other sites still rank better than mine in the Shopping listing under the default 'Relevancy' filter.
I have both a greater number and better reviews than the competitors and am showing a better price.
I wonder whether anyone has any information on whether the following factors affect the listing position under the 'Relevance' filter:
1 - Age of the listing or domain
2 - Historic 'Click-Rate' for domain in Shopping listing
2 - Overall quality of the data feed i.e. do errors or warnings for other products in the feed affect the positions of all items in the feed?
3 - Bounce rate or on-page time of clicks to target site
4 - Diversity of review sources
5 - Google Checkout reviews
6 - Company location in Google Local
For an ecommerce site this positioning can make a big-time difference to sales, so I'm hoping someone has run some tests on this they can share, and if not then why not?
Hoping someone can throw some light on this, as I can't find a great deal out there on this fundamental revenue stream for me.
Simon
-
After further investigation I think in my particular case the first company to add a specific EAN code for a product appears to gain the upper hand.
Some of the top ranking sites have no reviews and are not the best price by some degree. Since they also don't have Google Checkout and can't really have more fields entered for each product in their feeds, or be refreshing it more frequently, this would seem to be the likely answer.
-
1. I wouldn't remove the ones that have errors and warnings. I would fix them. Removing them isn't going to help your other products rank better. When I mentioned quality of your feed, I just meant don't have a product that is called Blue Mug and then the description says, "Blue Mug" Title would be Blue Mug, but then describe the mug fully. This blue mug is 4 inches tall by 2 inches wide and features an ergonomic handle. It's perfect for the chronic coffee drinker who is afraid of developing carpal tunnel..." Pretty awesome mug huh? More descriptive information that is accurate is what I mean by quality.
2. 250 reviews from the 3 different sources from what I can tell is better than all from the same. The reason I think this is because sometimes it's easy to manipulate one site, but to manipulate 3-4 is more difficult.
3. From what I've seen Checkout reviews are THE BEST reviews to have, so enabling Google Checkout is important. They are often times the hardest reviews to get, but the payoff is seen in product listings.
-
Hi Kadesmith,
Thanks very much for your input. So to clarify a few points.
1 - If I remove products from my feeds that have warnings or errors associated with them then my remaining listings will improve in Google Merchant Ranking in your opinion?
2 - If I had say 250 reviews from say 3 different review sources (say TrustPilot, Shopzilla and Pricegrabber) my rankings would likely be better than if I had the same 250 reviews from just 1 of these sources?
3 - How much of an influence does Google Checkout have on the rankings would you say? I did enable it in the past, but with a Magento site the complex shipping costs I use do not integrate with Google Checkout correctly and the access to necessary accounting information is frankly useless for UK purposes.
Thanks, Simon
-
From the testing I have done here are my findings specific to your questions:
1. Age - Not much of a factor. In fact, I have found that product listings seem to like fresh content.
2. Click Rate - Haven't seen much affect over the 3 sites I run.
3. Overall Quality - BINGO. The quality and quantity of data in your feed is the number 1 thing that I have found truly affects.
4. Bounce Rate - My bounce rate is pretty low when getting people from product feeds for all my sites, so I can't give feedback if a high bounce rate affects. I will say that product feed listings is one of the best sources of converting traffic for me though.
5. Diversity of review sources - This is probably the second biggest factor I have seen combined with #6 Google Checkout reviews. The more good reviews you have the better your product listings seem to do.
6. Company location in Google Local - Sorry can't give feedback here. Location doesn't matter in my niches.
Lastly, I just want to add that you want to make sure that you have data in every field possible. SKU and other product numbers are very big ones as they help you to rank with the big box boys on products that have several sellers. Provide something to your customers that they can't, and you'll find it helps a lot.
-
Just to add - I have as many possible fields (both required and optional) as anyone could reasonably have and probably a lot more than most.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can we use Youtube Videos of google webmaster on blog post?
Is it okay to embed YouTube videos of channel which we don't own? For example, I have written a blog on enabling event search in Google Analytics and Google Webmasters YouTube channel has a video based on those steps. I am looking to add that video in my blog.
Branding | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Wrong logo on Google Knowledge Panel
We have several different listings & brands on our site and the logo that is being pulled is one of our listings. We have identified the logo through organization structured data as well as provided the "feedback" section with the correct link multiple times. Does anyone know how we can get this resolved?
Branding | | imjonny1230 -
Where Does Google Pull the Photo From When You Search For Your Brand?
Hi All, In doing a search for our brand from our corporate HQ (Learning Tree), I came across a large embedded "ad" so to speak on the right hand side front and center of one of our locations (see attached photo). Clearly this is from Google's Knowledge Graph. We aren't pleased with the photo of a computer screen pulling randomly from our website...we are OK with the map listing though. Anyway to change this? As a note, when you search for "Learning Tree International" (our more official name as the entity as a whole - we have many locations around the world, and also one near our corporate HQ, which is the one that's displaying when you search "Learning Tree" alone), much better imagery of our logo is displayed. That's coming from our corporate G+ page. Any suggestions? Thank you. s0C5ZpT&hXaLhE7 s0C5ZpT&hXaLhE7#1
Branding | | CSawatzky0 -
Google displays the wrong store hours. Can anyone help lead me to the fix?
When doing the following search on Google "Ticket King Milwaukee hours" we see the wrong hours displayed at the top of the page. Just to the left of our places page, you will see "Tuesday hours 8:30-1:00 pm." That 1 pm closing comes up for every weekday, even though we are open until 6 pm weekdays, and 3 pm on Saturdays. I have checked the hours listed on our G+ page, our "Places for Business" page, our "about us" page on our website, and can't find where they are getting this incorrect data. I even went out and checked most of the "List your business" sites that I have registered with.
Branding | | Ticket_King
I have submitted this to Google, but have not heard back. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this, or at least find out where this bad data is coming from? I did find a company blog post from 2010 that listed our ours in a somewhat confusing way, but it was still correct. (I have since fixed that old post.)0 -
Google auto-correct affecting one of my keywords
Hi there, I have a keyword "finao montreal" that used to rank 8 or 9 in Google serp. All of a sudden it dropped under the top 50 results, I was wondering why and I found out that Google now auto-corrects "finao montreal" to "final montreal". Finao is a well know brand of custom high-end photo albums and I find it strange that Google corrects it. Anyone has an idea on what to do with this situation? Is there a way to provide Google some feedback about the autocorrect?
Branding | | valadas0 -
Different zoom levels of spots in Google Maps
Most roadmap imagery is available from zoom levels 0 to 18, for example. With zoom level 0 the whole world can be visible. As we all know, the more we zoom in on Google Maps, the more spots (e.g. name of restaurants, hotels etc.) are visible. Some spots are visible "sooner" - with a lower zoom level, which is of course better for the company. Some companies are only visible with a very high zoom level. If I have a highly branded company is the zoom level lower? Is this the answer for the different display?
Branding | | petrakraft1 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | | tass0 -
Changing a "city" or "town" location in google maps
Hello Mozinators! I have a client I currently work with doing SEO that has a rare problem that I have not come across before nor have I been able to find any information on how to make changes for it. The problem being that the city/township is more of a community that has yet to officially be labeled as a city, yet is still marked as a town on google maps. This is a great step in the right direction however the google maps location is over the wrong place. I have attached screenshots of the google maps for this location. In the top is a place called "Lakewood Ranch" and it is not in the correct spot. Lakewood Ranch should instead be in the bottom corner of the overview screenshot, where the town center is and the medical center off of the "University PKWY" exit. I have absolutely no idea on where to start to get these changes put in place, nor if they can even be put in place. Please let me know! Thank you so much in advance! a86TM.png u1ipV.png
Branding | | jbster130