SEARCHENGINES
Google Merchant Center Product Data Specification Updates For 2022

Annually, Google updates the Merchant Center product data specification and Google made some updates to it last night. Some updates went into place on April 27, 2022 and some go into place on June 26, 2022.
The last time Google updated the Merchant Center product data specification was in April 2021.
Here is a copy and paste of the changes listed:
Changes beginning immediately (April 27, 2022)
New attribute to pause ads: To help you manage how your products serve in ads, we’re introducing the pause [pause]
attribute. This new attribute will allow you to quickly pause (and then restart) showing your products in Shopping ads. Previously, some merchants have used the availability [availability]
attribute and set the value to “out_of_stock
” (out of stock) in order to stop ads from showing. Beginning early 2023, you should use the pause [pause]
attribute with a value of “ads” if you want to temporarily pause your ads. After this date, using the availability [availability]
attribute with an incorrect value could lead to product disapprovals.
Learn more about the pause ads [pause]
attribute.
Provide shipping country sub-attribute: When providing the shipping [shipping]
attribute, you now need to provide the country [country]
sub-attribute to ensure shipping prices are accurate. Item-level warnings (“Missing sub-attribute [country (sub-attribute of [shipping]
)]”) have already been issued in the Diagnostics page to help merchants identify affected products and will move to errors starting today.
Learn more about the shipping [shipping]
attribute and how to show products in multiple countries of sale.
To ensure that your products continue to show and prevent possible disapprovals, please go to the Diagnostics page of your Merchant Center account to review the affected products and apply the necessary changes.
Updated guidance for unique product identifiers: Unique product identifiers (GTIN [gtin]
, brand [brand]
, MPN [mpn]
) define the product you’re selling in the global marketplace. The following guidance will help you to use unique product identifiers correctly and accurately.
- If your products have assigned unique product identifiers and you have them available: Always include them to ensure best performance. If you have some identifiers available but not others, include what you have.
- If your products have assigned unique product identifiers, but you don’t have them available: Don’t include incorrect identifiers (for example, internal skus or other values specific to your store) or identifiers from similar products. If a product does have identifiers, don’t use the identifier exists
[identifier_exists]
attribute with a value of “false
” (false) or the product may be disapproved. - If your products don’t have assigned unique product identifiers: Don’t include the GTIN
[gtin]
, brand[brand]
, or MPN[mpn]
attributes for the product. Also do not include internal skus or other values specific to your store in these attributes. Instead, include the identifier exists[identifier_exists]
attribute with a value of “false
” (false).
Changes beginning June 26, 2022
Include the availability date for backorder and preorder products: You can specify that your products are available on backorder or preorder when you use the availability [availability]
attribute with values “backorder
” or “preorder
“. Starting June 26, you’ll need to provide the availability date [availability_date]
attribute with a date up to a year in the future to specify when backorder or preorder products will become available otherwise your products may be disapproved.
Learn more about the availability [availability] and availability date [availability_date] attributes.
Automatic item updates for condition: To help you keep your product data correct we’re adding automatic item updates for condition. Beginning June 26, 2022, all accounts will be automatically opted-in to use automatic item updates for condition. If you choose to not use the feature, you can opt-out in Merchant Center through the Automatic Improvements setting, under item updates. If you opt-out, your products may be disapproved if they use an incorrect condition value.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.
Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.
You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.
To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.
This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:
Here are some more screenshots:
Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023
Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:
In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO
— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023
I tried to replicate this but I came up short.
This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.
Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”
It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.
Here are screenshots Glenn shared:
Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?
Forum discussion at X.
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