Did you receive an email from Google stating that you’re “missing shipping information in your merchant listings on your site”?
What Does This Mean?
These notifications are coming from Google Search Console, which is a free web service provided by Google that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their site’s presence in Google search results.
Google relies on structured data, a standardized format for organizing and presenting information on web pages, to better understand and display content. This data is crucial for ecommerce websites, as it provides information on product pricing, stock levels, reviews, and more.
Google now includes shipping information in its structured data analysis and notifies ecommerce website owners via Google Search Console if their product pages lack accurate shipping details.
What Action Do I Need to Take?
The specific steps to add shipping information to your website’s structured data depend on your ecommerce platform.
Refer to Google’s instructions here.
Each platform (e.g., Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento) handles structured data differently, so consult your platform’s help documentation or contact their support for guidance.
For more information about your website, visit Google Search Console > Shopping > Merchant listings to see which structured data you’re missing.
What Happens if I Don’t Add Structured Data for Shipping to My Product Pages?
Although these data fields are optional, and Google can still serve your product pages organically and via Shopping ads without them, this may change in the future. It’s a good idea to add this data if possible.
Providing Google with the requested data increases the likelihood of your listings being featured in a clean, compelling manner with up-to-date information.
Read more about how Google uses structured data to enhance the information displayed about your products here.