Introduction
One of the two ways Google Shopping offers to syndicate product reviews to your Merchant Center is through an XML feed. In this guide, we'll carefully walk you through the setup process for submitting a product ratings feed to your Merchant Center account.
✨ Reading this guide requires a basic understanding of Google Shopping and the Merchant Center
Google Shopping Glossary
Brand - The specific brand or manufacturer of a product. In cases where the merchant is also the manufacturer and the only seller, the brand can be the store name
Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) - A unique identifier used to identify and track products in the global marketplace. In Shopify, the Barcode of a product can be an existing GTIN
Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) - A unique alphanumeric code assigned by a manufacturer to identify a specific product variant or model.
Product feed - A file that contains a list of products with attributes you want to advertise through Merchant Center
Product Ratings feed - A structured data feed (e.g. a data file in XML format) that contains information about customer reviews and ratings for products
Product Reviews - A feature in Google Shopping that allows merchants to showcase and display customer reviews and ratings for their products
Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) - While GTINs provide a standardized identifier for products across different companies, the SKU is a unique identifier primarily used for internal tracking. You can set the SKU of a product in Shopify.
📝 Note: The GTIN of a product cannot be invented and must be requested from the manufacturer. Learn more about it in this Shopify article.
Part I: Preparing Your Merchant Center Account
Before submitting a Product Ratings feed, please know that you must:
Have a Google Merchant Center account that is 100% operational. You can read more about how to troubleshoot your account in this article from Google
Have uploaded your product feed to Merchant Center. If you haven't uploaded it, follow Google's steps or use a third-party app from Shopify to submit your product feed. Google's approval can take up to 10 business days
Have access to the Product Reviews feature in Merchant Center. If you don't have access, please request it through this form
In the form, select No when they ask if you work with a third-party reviews aggregator
Select the types of products you collect reviews for
Select that you do have 50+ product reviews
Enter your business and contact information
Click Submit.
A few days after submitting the form, Google will reach out to you to inform you that Tydal cannot submit the product ratings feed on your behalf and that only you can send it to Merchant Center. Please reply to their email and accept that you will submit the feed
A few days after your reply, Google should get back to you and grant you access to the Product Reviews feature.
Make sure your product reviews follow their Product Ratings policies
If you already meet all the requirements, please continue with Part II.
💡 Find out more: Read this Google guide about the unique product identifiers (GTINs, MPNs,....) required for your product feeds.
Part II: Generating the Product Ratings Feed in Tydal
The Product Ratings feed needs to be uploaded through a structured data file in XML format that contains information about each published review and rating for your products. Please follow the steps below so that Tydal can generate the XML file for you.
Open Tydal Reviews & UGC and click Settings in the sidebar menu
Scroll down to the bottom to find the Google Shopping section
Toggle the switch
ONReview the additional settings:
Tick the option Use Product SKU as MPN only if you do not have the GTINs configured in Shopify and instead rely on SKUs. We will use the SKUs as the MPN in the feed
Tick the option Exclude GTINs only if you have GTINs configured in Shopify that are not authorized barcodes or fail to comply with international standards
Click Save
Below Setup for Scheduled Fetches you will find the file name and file URL. Copy them and save them to submit your Product Ratings feed later.
📝 Note: Google prefers GTINs. Without GTINs, they will attempt to match a review through SKUs, Brand + MPNs pairs, and product URLs. Read more about it on Product Ratings Basics.
Part III: Submitting the Product Ratings Feed to Merchant Center
Once you have prepared your Merchant Center account and generated the XML feed, please submit your product ratings feed.
Go to your Merchant Center account and click Marketing in the navigation menu
Click Product reviews under Marketing
Click Product reviews feeds to open the Feeds page
On the Feeds page, click the
+buttonEnter the name of your feed
Select Scheduled fetch as the input method and click Continue
In the next step:
Paste the file name provided by Tydal to the File Name field
Select the desired fetch frequency (we recommend using 'Daily')
Select the desired fetch time (we recommend '12:00 AM')
Select the desired time zone (we recommend 'UTC')
Paste the file URL provided by Tydal to the File URL field
The URL is not password-protected, so leave these optional fields blank
Click Create.
Continually check out the status of your product ratings feed until it changes from
ProcessingtoProcessed, which means that Google approved your reviews.
📝 Note: The XML feed created by Tydal is updated daily at 12:00 AM UTC.
Important: It can take Google up to 4 weeks to review the Product Ratings feed and make it go live.
Common Questions
Is Tydal Reviews an official aggregator?
Tydal Reviews & UGC is on the waitlist to be an official third-party aggregator, so the only way to help you submit your product reviews is through a product ratings feed we generate for you.
What are Google's requirements to submit my reviews through a product rating feed?
Following these requirements can guarantee that Google approves your feed:
Have a minimum of 50 reviews in your Product Ratings feed
Share all your product reviews with Google, including low-star reviews
Send your full reviews feed at least once a month
The reviews cannot contain the personal information of the customers (full names, emails, phone numbers, etc)
Read all Product Ratings policies here.
If Google does not approve your feed (the state changes from Processing to Failed), you will need to revise the product data and product reviews, generate the XML feed in Tydal, and submit again the product ratings feed.