Google Shopping Blocking All Vitamins and Natural Products - Glitch or Deliberate Censorship?
-
Hi everyone.
We have a client that manufactures and supplies dietary supplements all around the world. We are slightly concerned that a recent Google shopping glitch (or change) is now seemingly excluding products from the shopping search results.
This currently appears only to be happening in the US but we are really concerned, as our client ships all over the world and the potential loss of revenue could be quite large.
There is already a YouTube video that demonstrates what is going on which is available below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNDyS0tF4dY
Just to clarify, these are products that should not be included in any of Google's “sensitive” categories as they currently stand.
Taking Vitamin B12 as an example, it is recognised as a permissible dietary supplement within pretty much every regulatory framework around the world, including those governed by the US FDA, The Euopean Commission and the Australian TGA. Therefore there would be no legal reasons to prevent it's inclusion in shopping results in any country.
Has this just slipped under the radar or can anyone point us to a resource that may be able to clarify why this has happened?
Thanks in advance guys!
-
Not sure this was a glitch, sounds intentional (imho):
A vitamin vender who claims to have been able to reach a Google AdWords Specialist says he was told to contact Google's legal department at legal@google.com for more information. This department could not immediately be reached for comment about the Google Shopping anomaly, but the vender believes the issue stems from the European Union (EU)'s recent ban on vitamins and herbs, and Google's attempt to thwart potential trade sanctions...
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
-
Product pages - should the meta description match our product description?
Hi, I am currently adding new products to my website and was wondering, should I use our product description (which is keyword optimised) in the meta description for SEO purposes? Or would this be picked up by Google as duplicate content? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | markjoyce1 -
What are the technical details (touchpoints) of a website gathered by Google?
Hi all, Google crawls all the webpages and gathers content to index and ranking. Beside this general info, what are the all other possible technical details Google will be gathered about a website to rank or penalise or optimise the website in SERP? Like IP address, DNS server, etc.......Please share your knowledge and ideas on this. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Schema Mark up - Product Listing Pages
Hi I know you can add product schema to a product page, but can you add mark up to a product listing/category page? If so, which one would you use? I saw the item list mark up but didn't think this was relevant. Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Https & Google Updated Guidelines
Hi We have https on aspects of the site which users directly interact with, such as login, basket page. But we don't have https across the whole site. In light of Google adding it to their guidelines - is this something we need to put into action? Also same question on the Accessibility point Ensure that your pages are useful for readers with visual impairments, for example, by testing usability with a screen-reader. Are we going to be penalised if these are not added to our site? Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey0 -
Is it me or Google?
Hi All, I'm new here so take it easy on me.. OK, basically i have had a SEO company for about 3 years, they did a wonderful job, for the last 12 months or so i have been in top 1-3 positions for pretty much every keyword i wanted... On Jan 17th, that all changed, suddenly google doesnt like something about my site... for the sake of this questions lets focus purely on the keyword "CCTV", i use to be 1st or 2nd, it varied... Since Jan 17th i am all over the place, today alone, i was 9th this morning, then 13th, then 22nd... I am working on a lot of things my SEO company told me to do, with regards my site, obviously this is going to take time... but my big concern is that google doesnt seem to know where to rank me lol, i mean, at least if they settled on a place i.e 22nd, then i have a stable base to work from... Has anyone seen this kind of thing before, and can i expect at somepoint google decides to simply remove me? Any advice welcome. regards James
Algorithm Updates | | isntworkdull0 -
Can a google data refresh knock your pages out of the rankings?
I see that around mid November 2013 a handful of my sites pages dropped off of Google completely. It was around the data refreshes in November, and while everyone says it doesn't effect that much I was wondering if anyone knew if it could knock some of my pages out of the rankings for a specific keyword. Note - we had previously held muliple listings for different pages on our site for this particular keyword. Google kept the highest ranking and knocked the lower ones off. See attached image of our keyword ranking history to see what I mean. DcJJM0M
Algorithm Updates | | franchisesolutions0 -
CTR for Google Rankings
I run a local business, and I'm working on ranking for keyword + city. I currently rank on the first page for just about every keyword I'm working on, but only the top 3 for a little less than half. Because the search volume is so low for each keyword (for most cities Google doesn't have an estimated monthly search volume) the grand total of a few searches a month for each keyword + city combination is where I get my traffic. Although I seem to be getting consistently higher in the rankings, I am curious as to how much more traffic I can expect. I read somewhere that sites that are ranked number one are clicked 50% of the time, number two 20% of the time, number three 15% and from there on it goes down fast. Rank 7 and on is below 1%. Probably around 30% of my keywords are ranked between 7-10 and probably about 20% are ranked 4-6. Are the CTR numbers fairly accurate? I understand that there are a lot of influences on CTR, such as title/description, but generally is that somewhat accurate? If it is, I am missing out on A LOT of traffic. I am pulling about 800 unique visitors a month from Google. If I get in the top 3 for most of my keywords, can I expect significantly more traffic? I ask the question because there are many other things I could be doing with my time to help the business aside from SEO. I don't want to be working constantly on SEO if traffic is only going to increase very little.
Algorithm Updates | | bjenkins240 -
If Google turns down the weight of keywords in domains then what will they be turning up?
Per Matt Cutts video "We will be turning that keyword in domain down." http://youtu.be/rAWFv43qubI So what will they be turning up?
Algorithm Updates | | Thos0030