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
-
Google+ SERP Visibility For Non Branded Keywords
Hi, I've noticed that a competitors Google+ box is appearing on the right hand side of the Google UK SERPs for a non-branded keyword (open air balustrade). Please see attached image. I've always thought that the Google+ box would only be displayed in the SERPS for branded keywords. How is this Google+ box appearing for non-branded keywords? How can we improve our chances of our Google+ box being shown instead? Many thanks in advance, Lee. vDm914D
Branding | | Webpresence0 -
Importance of Google+ name?
Greetings Mozzers, I'm working on some Google+ profiles currently and have one interesting case where I'd like some advice. The name of one of my clients' web addresses, company name, and Google+/Google Local verified local business names all reflect the same thing. [Name] Surgical Associates However, on Google+ it looks like it has a limited number of characters so it reads: [Name] Surgical Ass... How important is it to keep the name identical to everything else on the web? Could I get away with just changing the name on Google+ to [Name] Surgical I appreciate in advice on this matter and what would occur if I changed it here. Thanks.
Branding | | MonsterWeb283 -
Price, Ratings, Cuisine filter does not show from Carousel.
When looking at the carousel for restaurants Houston, or colorado springs restaurants, etc. I am not getting a price, ratings filter. I am using Chrome, have extensions off, etc. Not in a non-personalized search, logged into Google as one of my accounts. Someone else on different machine next to me (they are both MacBook Pros though) is getting the ratings filter. Anyone else seen this? Thanks
Branding | | RobertFisher0 -
Google Plus for Businesses - Should I add users to Company's Circles (branded page)?
Hi All, I know (or think I know) that one of the easiest ways to gain followers for my brand on G plus is to add people to our company's circles. Naturally, they often add you back. However, what does it mean to people who watch my brand (my G Plus page), the fact that I'm following thousands of people? Should I do it? How does it reflect on us?
Branding | | BeytzNet
Is there a better way to gain followers (specifically for G Plus)? P.S
We obviously have the badge on site but we hardly gain followers that way. Thanks0 -
Online retailer has old product listing
A large online retailer in Europe used to sell a product that we sell in the US. They have not sold the product for more than a year but have not removed the item from their product listings. The price is marked down and the description says the product has been discontinued. They sell a very large number of items and have a high DA and this product listing ranks high in Google SERP. As you can imagine, this causes significant problems for us. Potential customers are given the wrong price and are also being told that the product has been discontinued. I have sent numerous requests to the retailer asking them to delete the product from their database with no success. Is it possible to send a notice to Google requesting that this product page be de-indexed? Any other suggestions? Best,
Branding | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Can i link my rel=publisher to a number of relevant microsites ?
We have linked our Google plus company profile to our main website and setup a rel=publisher authorship which appears and works fine in the SERPS as we regularly create Google plus posts about our industry and products. We also gain some good traffic through some of our smaller product specific micro sites so i wanted to setup our publisher markup for these also as some of our posts are relevant to these products. I setup the rel=publisher on one of these , but the Google snippet testing tool says that the rel publisher is unverified. Is this Google's way of saying i cannot use the same Google plus company profile across multiple sites My question is: Does Google not allow you to display the same Google plus rel publisher profile for multiple websites ? or is the there a problem with how i am marking up my micro sites ? has anybody tried this ?
Branding | | Antony_Towle0 -
How to troubleshoot google authorship?
Before anyone makes the suggestion, I have already read many of the articles online how to create authorship. I believe I have gone through every step correctly. Google plus is properly connected to my blog, name is same on blog as it is in google plus profile. It even appears that the rich snippets tool is reading my mark up appropriately. It's been about a month and I'm not seeing my image with my blog posts. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there a way to trouble shoot this? My image shows for my google plus page, just not my blog posts. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks. Regards, Dino
Branding | | Dino640 -
Facebook, Google Plus - What to share/like?
Hi everybody! We are planning to offer an incentive to all our customers who interact with us on social media websites. What's the most important thing to ask from a customer? Facebook to like our Facebook business page or to like our own website through Facebook? to just follow us on Facebook or to actually comment / interact on our wall? Google + to +1, share, add to circle our Google+ business webpage or to +1 or share our own website? So basically what do we need to promote most? Our Facebook / Google+ business pages or our own website through social media marketing? While we understand it's important to actually interact with the customers and offer value on social media websites, we are looking to boost our SEO efforts. Thank you!
Branding | | echo10