Power Sellers Unite

ChaseTheChuckwagon · Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 32

I have been having a heck of a time dealing with Google lately. I used to be able to feed all our fixed price/buy now listings for GameGavel.com through Google Base.

While reviewing your data feed we noticed that your site isn't compliant
with our Program Policies. We have therefore disabled your Google Merchant Center account.

You must own any products that you submit to the Google Merchant Center and ship these products directly to the buyer. We aren't accepting sites which sell products on commission, including, but not limited to:

- Affiliate sites
- Comparison shopping sites
- Readymade 'wholesale' or 'drop ship' sites

So now Google Base is just filled up with retail stores. Big FAIL GOOGLE!

mojavelyn · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:58 am Post subject:

Google made these changes in late 09. Where have you been?

ChaseTheChuckwagon · Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 32

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Google made these changes in late 09. Where have you been?

That maybe, but my feeds have been up until about a month ago. So this was the first I had heard of it, when they shut me off. I guess I should be thankful for flying under the radar then.

It's funny because Google.co.uk is still running our UK feeds?
http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy&hl=en&biw=1345&bih=553&tbs=shop:1&q=gamegavel&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=8a9e49f84e7434bc

mojavelyn · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:10 am Post subject:

Are you a single seller or multi-seller platform?

ChaseTheChuckwagon · Joined: 19 Jun 2008 Posts: 32

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")Are you a single seller or multi-seller platform?

Just like Ebay but for video games. Multi. But they had always included our Buy Now formated listings in Base. It brought in a good number of eyes to the site. Why did they say they changed this? I don't recall ever getting any communication from them about this change at all.

myauctionplanet · Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 73 Location: Ellington , CT

Hi ChaseTheChuckwagon,

Was your Google Feed a bulk feed for all the members on the site?

We had a similar issue as a multi-seller platform. Google required us to create an account for each member of the site with an individual feed as a multi-seller platform.

After email discussion with Google, the reasoning was that if one seller does something that would not adhere to Google's TOS, then just that individual feed would be suspended. This ensures all the members are not punished for one member's actions.

You have to request a multi-seller account through Google. The process was seamless. You can even automate sub account set up with their API.

mojavelyn · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 12:01 pm Post subject:

Ok... so I'm going to presume you do a ftp or sitemap type feed for the whole site?

I have my feeds set up for individual sellers. But I only have about 200 active sellers also.

Did you fail to respond to any emails you had gotten about items not being accept for any reason? (added ... you do not have to repsond to google, but you need to check the feed at line number and item number to see what was disallowed and why, edit the item, then resubmit. repeated disallows for the same cause will cause your feed to be disallowed.)

You can take this up with google. Ask for live help, human intervention. they'll give you alot of flack with robot emails saying to edit the item and resubmit, but you must be persisitant. Not too far long ago, google nailed a couple items for the name Mary Kay... I had one seller with Mary Kay Cosmetics and one with books by an author named Mary Kay.

they sent an email for these items for prohibited word, doesn't tell you what the word is so you can eidt it, they tell you to edit each word and resubmit it... I read each description, nothing in there that should have been removed or that a 4th grader shouldn't see common, plain ordinary language, I checked codes for hidden stuff, ... what did they have in common? I googled organic and shopping, for each item... when I hit the words Mary Kay in shopping.. I found books (just like my seller's) that the author's name had been removed. For "Mary Kay" ... 40+ pages of Amazon selling Mary Kay Cosmetics and 1 individual seller.

So... the problem was not with the items or description ... the problem was Mary Kay. Also found out that Mary Kay cosmetics had filed suit about misuse of the Mary Kay name.

There is a page where you can tell google this item was wrongfully disallowed and after repeated protests and filing that complaint numerous times ... I finally got a human. And got those items allowed.

I have each seller set up, not a whole site feed. Much easier to monitor.

As for commission items...MLM type ... Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware, Watkins, these are traditionally door to door, catalog sales. However with the internet, everyone is selling them online. I know Watkins changed their policy that a seller can only have about 20 items on a marketplace. Now these companies also require reps to purchase product, for their personal use, immediate sales, and product preview. So, if these products are "in hand" and available for immediate shipment, then they should pass the test.

Affiliates and drop shipping... I chose to believe that Google attempted to level the playing field of people with REAL items from being pushed out by dropship junk. If you read anything by me on this board concerning dropshippers... 150,000 sellers selling the exact same thing, with the exact same worthless description, on numerous sites, of the same "made in china". Someone watched an informerical about this and believed the pitchmen when they said you can sell this on ebay... and they loaded ebay up... and when ebay's fees got too much because they were attempting to undercut their competition for the same items... they branched out to other sites. And if these items are going to harm my sellers who have product in hand... guess who is leaving?

houstonexpat · Joined: 24 Feb 2011 Posts: 60 Location: USA

Anybody made the changes for the next round of Google changes ?? UPC, Unique Identifiers etc

We sell Electronic cables and already getting the warnings from Google

myauctionplanet · Joined: 17 Nov 2007 Posts: 73 Location: Ellington , CT

Hi houstonexpat,

We have this done on our site. You will see UPC and MPN fields when you post. You will be included in our other electronics specific feeds when you include MPN since is what their bots/spiders look for in our listings. You must open a free store to benefit from all our feeds.