Hi all

Google announced Sept 2, 2009 that as of December 1, 2009 they will be retiring all standalone single use Google Base accounts.

Any seller offerring product for sale on a marketplace and are currently uploading their own file to Google Base will no longer be able to manage their own feed. It will now be the responsibility of the marketplace.

Which for eBay Store sellers means we have to depend on eBay to upload our file for us. Not a comforting thought. The marketplace is also now going to be responsible for seeing that their sellers feeds are compliant.

Repeated disapproved or deactivated feeds can mean the entire site is deactivated from Google Base.

Here is the link to the Google Announcement
http://googlebase.blogspot.com/

Here is the link to the new policy page

http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=159581&&hl=en

This is a big huge change and right at Christmas. There are some major drawbacks to the marketplace submitting our data on our behalf.

One being access to our own data statistics. Unless Google makes some changes to the way the multiclient accounts work, we will no longer have access to Impressions, Clicks or Performance data. And we will lose the ability to download our own CSV files of Item product or API activity.

We will also no longer be able to access "view errors and suggestions" so we can fix any possible issues. Unless the marketplace notifies you of any issue(s), you will not know any more that something is wrong.

Google Checkout "orders" link has been removed from the Google Base dashboard and placed on the Google Account Home page under the "More" link,

There are still too many unknowns so no one can really make major plans on what is the best steps to take. However, while you still have the ability, start checking the Impressions, Clicks and Performance details in your Base feed so you will have an idea of what needs tweaked to yield up higher in Product shopping search results.



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

Hi,
Wondering if this is why my xml uploads are being disapproved today 09-20-09, or is there some other reason. I have been using Keiths corrected file and it has been working fine, last one I did was probably on the 13th or 14th.
Anyone else having problems?
Thanks

HI

Keith's program did not have anything to do with it. All individual marketplace sellers who were uploading their own feeds had their feeds disapproved across all sites. It has been a mess.

eBay has been uploading eBAy store seller's items to BAse. The problem is the branding. All the display names are "eBay" which is fine but the seller's user id or store name is totally masked. If you go to Google product and search by your own user id or store name, nothing serves up.

If you search for eBay, millions of listings show up. eBay has completely destroyed the seller's branding



Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady

Thanks Judy,
I thought it was going to happen down the road.
Do we have any options, is there nothing to be done?
Terri

Terri

At this point, I haven't a great solution.

eBay is feeding store seller's items to Base. But their feed is beyond pitiful. The "Display Name" is eBay.. Which is fine but what isn't fine is eBay has completely masked the sellers user id and store name so the individual seller's items are unsearchable by seller name in product search. Hence you cannot locate your own author id to verify your items uploads etc.

Not all sites do that. Most sites at least leave the seller's id searchable so if someone is searching for a particular seller in Google Product, the seller can be found. But not eBay.

I have moved roughly 1/3 of my inventory to Bonanzle. Not duplications but unique items. Bonanzle's Google feed is a much higher grade of a feed. It totally out performs eBay's feed hands down. Prior to this google change when I could access my own statistics for my feed, the Impressions and clicks for the Bonanzle feed were going through the roof while eBay's feed had little activity regardless of what I did.

But as far as eBay's feed, I think if the store sellers started making requests via the suggestion box, on the boards etc for at least the ability to see how the items in our particular feed are performing so we can make adjustments. that would be helpful. Flying blind does not work very well.




Judy/blue

Visit my eBay store!
http://stores.ebay.com/bluepennylady?refid=store
Visit our website too!
http://www.pennyworthsales.com

Visit me at Bonanzle!
http://www.bonanzle.com/bluepennylady