Google Merchant Center.... where to start?

[prsweeney]

Maria, don't hesitate to contact Merchant Center help too. Like all Google products, it can be a huge run-around sometimes, but they are generally pretty good at helping figure out stuff too. Usually takes 24 hours to get back to you, but they always do get back.

[MariaV]

If you contact mole end support, we can look into it for you, send a copy of the feed file with the ticket. You can create a ticket here :

http://moleend.helpserve.com/index.php?/default

A screen shot of the error message would also be useful.

Regards,

Thanks Jan

ticket sent....

Chris

[MariaV]

Think I've got to the hearty of the problem.

There's a robots.txt file on the site disallowing the google image bot. hence why images not showing.

I've tried deleting all products and resubmitting the feed (as well as deleting the offending robots file. But that's not worked. Images still not showing... I wonder if google sis still got the old data, as it were. Will see about uploading a single data file with a different product. One that's not on the site and see if this works.

[MariaV]

Another question....

Just been re-reading Googles policies for Merchant center.

It talks about the whole checkout process being secure.

Yet the checkout on Actinic (correct me if I'm wrong) isn't. Only when you go to the PSP do you enter a secure page.

Will my products now be disapproved for this? Anyone?

[Jan]

Hi Maria,

I think you will be fine on that, I have never heard of a Sellerdeck/Actinic customer having products rejected on those grounds.

Regards,

[prsweeney]

Jan's right, never had an issue with that.

[MariaV]

Just been checking Googles policies and messaged the merchant center forums.

From googles policies:

"Payments

Your website must provide a way for users to purchase the product online through either a payment service or directly from your website. Payment and transaction processing, as well as processing of any personal information of the user (such as the address) must be secure (SSL-protected, with a valid SSL certificate)."

Quote from message received from the forums

"yes, any contact details whatsoever -- collected
without being ssl/https secure -- is a policy violation."

Do I just wait and see what happens? We current host with Actinic on their silver package. I can't justify upgrading to Gold just for the sake of getting an SSL. I don't think I'd make back the extra £1500.

So.... what do you peeps reckon? is it something to worry about? I'm still waiting for a rsponse from merchant center about my blocked images. Been over a week now and nothings happened other than 'our engineers are looking into it' How long do Google take to respond? is there no other means of contact other than email ?

[MariaV]

Hallelujah.... Google have now fixed my images and 90% of my listing has been approved. Will try and figure out later why the remaining 13 items have been disapproved.

I've set up an adwords campaign... anyone with any tips on getting the best from my ads?