12-01-09 Google Eliminates Duplicate Listings From Duplicate Sellers

Right ahead of the heaviest Christmas shopping, Google Base is eliminating the accounts of sellers who list identical products at more than one of the various marketplaces. Google Base is trying to eliminate duplicate feeds from sellers who list their products (identical) on several venues. They have created multi-client accounts for aggregators and the various venues to manage feeds for multiple sellers under one account.

Multi-client accounts allow aggregators and venues to consolidate and manage data feeds for all of the accounts for each individual seller. Google is implementing this change December 1, 2009. Google will be notifying all individual sellers that would be affected by the change so that they can bring their feeds into compliance.

From the Google Base Blog:

New Policies for Marketplaces & Aggregators on Google Product Search
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 3:58 PM

Today we're happy to introduce multi-client accounts as a solution to help aggregators and marketplaces manage feeds for multiple sellers under a single account. By allowing marketplaces better control over their sellers' product data, shoppers get more accurate and relevant information when they search for things to buy on Product Search, and individual sellers don't need to submit their own feeds. The multi-client accounts allow aggregators and marketplaces to consolidate and manage data feeds and reporting for sub-accounts, submit changes more rapidly, and get more accurate Google Checkout badging at the seller level. Marketplaces and aggregators will be required to use multi-client accounts to submit and manage their sellers' feeds starting on December 1st, 2009.


As a result of these changes, individual sellers on marketplaces no longer need to submit a feed to Google Product Search. To avoid duplicate listings we will be notifying individual sellers and retiring their accounts. Please see the full Marketplace and Aggregator policies for more information.

Linking Your Checkout and Base Accounts
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 9:59 AM

As we announced on July 30th, we're retiring the "One at a time" upload option on Google Base today. If you've been using the "One at a time" upload option, we recommend submitting through a data feed, which allows you to submit single or multiple items quickly and easily. For those providers who want Google to host a page for their item - for example, if you don't have a website - just submit your data feed without anything in the "link" attribute, and we'll create a Google Base page for your item.

For those users who are interested in selling items hosted on Google pages, we're making it easier to link your Google Base account to Google Checkout, our payment processing solution. When you sign in today, you'll notice a new page in your "Settings" tab called "Checkout." If there's a Checkout account linked to your Base account already, you'll see it listed on this page. If you're not already linked to a Checkout account, or want to add a different account, you'll be able to do that by entering the Checkout Merchant ID. Any Checkout accounts added in this manner will need to be verified in Google Checkout, so your payments information is secure. We hope you find this expanded functionality useful.
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This could prove to be another challenge for some sellers this holiday season if they have not prepared for the change. Are you ready?