Merchants on Google Shopping Must Now Verify their URLs
Google is announcing that any merchant listing on Google Merchant Center/Shopping are now required to verify their website URLs through Google Webmaster tools. Not doing so by May 18th will result in feeds being submitted to Google to be disapproved.
The steps are as follows:
- Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
- Click Add a site, and type the URL of the site you want to add. Make sure you type the entire URL, such as http://www.example.com/
- Click Continue. The Site verification page opens.
- (Optional) In the Name box, type a name for your site (for example, My Blog).
- Select the verification method you want.
- Meta tag: We will ask you to add a meta tag with a unique value to your site’s home page. This is the easiest solution if editing your home page’s HTML is easier than uploading new files. In addition, this solution lets you easily verify sites you’ve created using Google Sites.
- HTML file: We will ask you to upload a specific file to the top directory of your website. This option is easiest if you cannot modify the HTML of your home page but have the ability to upload files to your webserver.
The rest of the guide can be found here.
Obviously these are very important steps to take, as not doing so will result in a merchant’s feed being disapproved, and eventually be taken off of Google.
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