Earlier we reported about the Google Shopping experience scorecard where Google said it would reward merchants that provide an “excellent customer experience” with “a boost in rankings,” “a badge” and “other benefits that will help consumers find your business,” within the Google Shopping tab in Google Search.

Google now announced this reward is through the “Trusted Store badge” that can be seen on free Google Shopping listings. Google said “merchants who provide excellent shipping and returns services, for example, may receive a badge indicating they’re a Trusted Store, which will appear alongside their free product listings on the Shopping tab.”

What the trusted store badge looks like. Here is a GIF of the trusted store badge in the Google shopping results:

The badge increases engagement. Google said the trusted store badge, “based on our early testing,” drive more clicks to the merchants listings, Google said they are “more likely to receive clicks.” Google also said the search company is “seeing stronger traffic to lesser-known merchants.”

How to earn the badge. Merchants receive a Trusted Store badge based on their performance across metrics relative to other merchants, including but not limited to shipping speeds, shipping and return costs, and return windows. We documented a lot of these metrics over here in our earlier coverage, but here is Google’s help document as well.

Launching in a few months in the US. Google said “the Shopping Experience Scorecard program and trusted store badge will roll out across the U.S. in the coming months.

New insights reports. To help merchants provide excellent customer service and to see how their product listings are performing. Google said “this new tool shows merchants the total traffic, impressions and conversion rate of their free listings, helping them make decisions about future ones.” Google will break down how well your product listings are doing, even with new conversion reporting on free listings. There is a pricing report to show you how your pricing competes with others in the market and reports on your top viewed products.

Here are some screenshots of these new insights reports:

Rings a bell. Does this trusted store badge ring a bell to you? Well, yes, a decade or so ago, Google had a free trusted store badge for merchants as well. This was more on the search ad side of the coin, whereas this new badge is for free product listings.

Why we care. Badges can help you generate more clicks on your listings, so it is worth looking into and gaining a badge if possible. The insights reports gives you more data on how your products are performing in Google Search and Google Shopping and how you compete with the current marketplace.

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Google now lets you link your Google Merchant Center account with your Google Analytics 4 property. Plus, Google added that you can now “see your conversions from free product listings by connecting your Merchant Center and Google Analytics property.”

What is new. On February 1st, we reported that Google added auto-tagging to your free Merchant Center products for improved tracking not just on your paid product listings but also on your free product listings. This new announcement says “you’ll now be able to see your conversions from free product listings by connecting your Merchant Center and Google Analytics property.” “This can help you measure the direct impact of your Merchant Center product data,” Google added.

Linking Merchant Center and GA4. With Universal Analytics going away next year, Google seems to be rolling out a way to link your Google Analytics 4 properties with Google Merchant Center. Here is a screenshot of the Merchant Center option under the product links in GA4:

How to do this. If you have an existing Google Analytics (GA4) property, then you can connect it to your Merchant Center account by visiting the conversions settings page. Google said that you’ll need to turn auto-tagging on for this feature to work.

Why we care. The more integrated tracking we have, the more informed decisions we can make on your campaigns, SEO efforts and overall marketing efforts. Tracking is key with everything search marketers do, so having this data to aid you on where you should spend your resources on is important.

You can expect Google to add more Google product integrations in GA4 in the coming months.

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Google has updated its Buy on Google Retailer Standards policies. The changes include removing: order caps, automatic suspension via the Retailer Standards program and the “Defects” tab within the Merchant Center dashboard.

Tip of the hat to Lawrence Chasse for bringing this to our attention.

Why we care. Order caps were previously imposed on merchants that were performing poorly (according to Google’s Retailer Standards score); the same was true for automatic suspensions. Order capping could also slow down sales for new merchants until they complete onboarding by requesting a review of their store. 

Now that these two penalties are gone, merchants have fewer potential bottlenecks when it comes to selling via Buy on Google.

However, these policies were designed to protect customers (as well as Google’s reputation as a shopping platform) from disreputable merchants. Google has yet to reveal what new safeguards it’ll put in place (if any) to ensure a consistent, positive Buy on Google experience.

What’s changing. In the email notification sent to merchants, Google said it will:

• Stop order capping and automatic suspensions via the Retailer Standards program.
• Remove the ‘Defects’ tab from the Retailer Standards tab in your Merchant Center account.
• Stop sending Retailer Standards monthly emails.
• Roll out a new page to display order performance at some point in the future.

Why Google made these changes. “We’re making these changes to help you succeed on Google while ensuring our policies keep up with Buy on Google’s evolution,” Google said in the email.

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Online retailers can now add an optional short title to identify their products in Google Merchant Center.

The new [short_title] attribute differs from the existing [title] attribute in that the short title should be concise and is intended to show in “browsy experiences,” like Discovery campaigns and Shopping ads on Gmail.

Why we care. Full product titles often get truncated in the “browsy” contexts Google has mentioned, which means that users may not be seeing all the relevant information from your ad. Short titles provide merchants with an alternate, concise way to identify their products, which could help to improve clickthrough rates.

Short title requirements. While Google allows 1–150 characters for this field, it recommends using between 5 and 65 characters. Google also advises that merchants:

• Use a relevant, concise short title that clearly describes their product.
• Ensure that the short title describes the product on the landing page.
• Use professional and grammatically correct language.
• Avoid foreign languages unless they’re well understood (e.g., “sushi”).
• Avoid using capital letters for emphasis.
• Avoid including promotional text (i.e., prices, sales dates, your business’ name, etc).
• Don’t add extra white spaces.

Best practices for short titles. As mentioned above, Google recommends limiting your short titles to 65 characters or less — this is because users typically only see the first 65 characters of a short title (depending on their screen size). 

You should also highlight the most important details by placing them towards the front, since users don’t always read the entire title. And, adding a brand name is a good idea if it helps differentiate the product — this can be important when you sell similar products across brands.

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