Oh Boy, now I have to check all my books to make sure I added the ISBN.



Upcoming changes to Google Merchant Center to improve the Product Search experience Report abuse

Ronald
Google Employee
7/9/10

Starting in late August, product offers in the Electronics, Books, and Media categories from US merchants may not appear in Product Search if your data feed does not include the necessary unique product identifiers, such as MPN, Brand, GTIN/UPC/EAN or ISBN. These attributes will not be required for your feed to process correctly, so any product-based ad format will continue to show and product offers in other categories will continue to be listed on Google Product Search. However, to avoid seeing a drop in traffic from Product Search, we urge you to start including these unique identifiers as soon as possible, for as many categories as you can get this data.

For more details, including what specific identifiers you should include for each category of item, please see this Help Center FAQ: http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160161.

Please visit the official Google Merchant blog at http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/improving-product-search-experience.html for more information on these changes.

Well, its going to be hectic to check all your records i guess.

I noticed this announcement on eCrater; I'm in panic mode--lots of tedious hours of work involved for book and media sellers. And ISBN numbers are nonexistent for self-published works such as chapbooks. Maybe I'm wrong, but seems like lots of busy work for little gain. thanks for posting.

I just wish they would settle on a name for Google products
And extend it to Australia and New Zealand, Europe etc.

I remember getting this email a while back. Your feed to Google will still be processed normally. I can't imagine a search by a prospective customer resulting in not seeing someone's product because there was no ISBN. Unless of course, they were searching by ISBN, but few people search by that parameter.

Where google is missing the boat on this are the books that were printed before ISBN came into being.

And I, refuse!!! to put an isbn number on a book when the edition doesn't have one.

For those who don't know what I mean... What If I have a 1950s 1st ed of something... If I put an isbn on that... that is falsifying data on the book.

Or what about my collection of 1960s vinyl?

Mo I might be mistaken but I thought someone said that books printed before 1970 would be excluded, but some sort of attribute would need to be included such as Author or date. I have about 100 books so I don't really consider myself a book-seller, but I have a large amount of sheet music which has no ISBN nor do my church hymnals. I guess those items just won't make it into GS!

The email I got on this didn't say about books before 1970. Its was during the 70s that the isbn evolved. But that will put the antiquarian/vintage booksellers out of the market.

I have been trying to get the sellers at AS to put isbn or other pre-isbn id in the description. A few of us have... So for us, adding it won't be all that hard.

But there are alot of old bad habits still being practiced.

Someone sellng on one of the big book sites ... sent me a copy of her book database... I saw where she had put in an isbn on a pre-isbn edition...she said the big booksite required it.

I gonna tell you something. This looks stupid, but I believe they aren't just doing it to get mad sellers.

I believe they want to begin to ban some products. I didn't how works Amazon and if eBay added something new. But when I was in the University a lot of students with low budget search Internet to get softcover or trade-paperbacks version of hardcovers books. The interesting thing the books were the same, but these version are sold only outside US for low budget countries. You can't sold them in US. I saw versions just for $30 (including S&H) against a Hardcover version for $150 (already with tax in that moment because is different) in the library.

I was looking in eCrater, 17 of my items leave outside from the Feed. I check and found one, but I don't understand the reason.

elpereles I agree I don't think it's a ploy to add extra work for sellers, they are trying to refine search results. One thing I do see now, is that sellers that don't use an ISBN for their listings, get a better spot light in a Google Shopping search since they aren't lumped into the Book Search.

I'm still wondering what I will use for items without an ISBN...do you just make something up?
I'm not a book seller as I said, but have close to 200 pieces of sheet music and probably 50 or so old church song books.

Mo if you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear your opinion.

Oh yeah! Google is lookign to make changes alright. They are looking to get rid several things...

Was a book for pleasure.. or was it a book for a class... because it would have the be the right edition for a class.. it could be hard cover or soft cover, but if the teacher is using 5th ed. it better be the 5th ed. I have 4 separate editions of Embry's Anthropology and I think there are 10 or more.

what does the error say?

I've had very good luck selling text books and books for teachers. I use the ISBN and of course note the edition.
My daughters always sign up for classes, pay $150 for a book then drop the class...Thanks kids...my money grows on trees!

I'm actually considering just donating my sheet music, slow movers for sure! But the old hymnals sell fairly well, maybe I'll just put them on CL and see what happens.

hotnana wrote (View Post): › elpereles I agree I don't think it's a ploy to add extra work for sellers, they are trying to refine search results. One thing I do see now, is that sellers that don't use an ISBN for their listings, get a better spot light in a Google Shopping search since they aren't lumped into the Book Search. I'm still wondering what I will use for items without an ISBN...do you just make something up? I'm not a book seller as I said, but have close to 200 pieces of sheet music and probably 50 or so old church song books. Mo if you have any thoughts on this, I would love to hear your opinion.

I wouldn't make something up to make it fit. You have to be true to the product.

I'm gonna tell you a story... I did genealogy research for several years.. off and on for over 30 years now... The first thing I learned was ALWAYS use a female's maiden name. In doing research with some "old fashioned" minded people and asking for the female lines... I had to word things carefully, because at a gathering one would inevitably say, "But she's a so and so now" And I would have to answer... But Was She Born MARRIED or was she born with her father's name?

If a book has gone thru numerous reprints, and you are holding a 1st ed before ISBN was used... Was the book BORN with the ISBN? If it wasn't why use it?

If you are holding a piece of REAL depression era glass... and a reproduction and you know the Real d.e. was made by OH Glass ... and the repro was made by IL glass... Would you say the repro was made by OH glass?

if someone is claiming to have a 1st ed GWTW that was issued without an isbn and had an isbn associated with it it, with 1st ed pricing... I would question the authenticity.. And I've seen some who say 1st ed and its clearly a BCE... and the rules on this aren't as hard and fast for fiction and it is for non-fiction.

In this, google appears to be sorting the "used" from the newer... and possibly the dropshipper stuff.

But sometimes I think google is run by wet behind the ears kids who have no concept of life before 10 digit dialing.

mojavelyn in the eCarter Status feed it doesn't expalin it. Today I check is fine accepted all items.

Google is a big multi-millonaire company. Like all these types of companies they don't care until they see drop in users because it equals less $$$.

Look eBay. Now they add this 100 items of 0.99 post for free monthly. They will never accepted that they loose some $$$ thanks to the Alternatives. But they add this and already did 2 free promo. The last one was 2 weeks long.

Look Microsoft with the Vista OS. No matter what they did to sell it. A lot people know it is a piece of trash. A lot of people decide to downgrade their new computers to XP. Microsoft spend millions in Vista for research and promo. If they manage to get $$$ back from Vista was because they sell license to computers manufactures.

I sell a lot of homeschool books and many of them have their own numbering system.

An example is Abeka, the newer books have 8 digit codes, such as "69299008" the older books had alpha codes, such as "TAE". Any suggestion on what I should use for Google?