Product descriptions on Google Shopping

[killerbox]

The descriptive text that shows up with our product listings in a Google shopping search is currently just the Product Name repeated.

Does Google get this information from the 'Product Description' field of each product's info? We currently leave that field blank, since any text entered shows up on the category page between the product's name and price- which would create a mess of the category pages if all that extra text was displayed for each product).

If that's the case- is it possible to eliminate the 'Description' text from category pages (via changing the template)- or is there another way to change the info Google uses for the description ('Extra Fields', maybe)? There isn't a place to change the description in the 'Google Shopping/Merchant Center Feed' section of the product info settings.

[Jim]

What do you have configured on Merchandising > Google Services > Google Shopping/Merchant Center > Configuration for the Description?
If you can't find something that works for you, you might try using one of the extra product fields.

Note that Google frequently changes what they want and how they want it so check their current specification and see what type of data they are expecting for that field.

[killerbox]

Thanks, Jim- The Google Shopping Configuration gives three options for 'Description'- Product Description, More Info Page Text, and More Info:Meta Description.

Unfortunately we're already using the 'More Info Page Text' field for each product page's HTML code, and are going to start using additional Meta tag code in the' More Info:Meta Description' Field.

This leaves the 'Product Description' field as the other option- The configuration settings only seem to use Extra fields for sending Attributes / additional info to google.

Is it easy to remove the 'Product Description' text from showing up on our Shopsite pages, via a change to the template? We're currently using 'Multi-Use-Page-Left', but I can't find any Template Tags in the code that would seem to affect the description. Or is it possible to have Google recognize one of the Extra fields as 'Description'?

Thanks again for your help!

[Jim]

What information do you have in the product description? Hopefully it is not just the product name, because that usually isn't very descriptive.

The template tag for the product description is [-- PRODUCT.ProductDescription --] so if you can find that in the template you could remove it or replace it with some other product template tag.

You could use one of the custom fields and give it the name of the value that Google uses for the description, change the name on Preferences > Extra Fields Configuration. However, there isn't a way to not send the info that is configured on the Merchandising Tools > Google Services > Google Shopping/Merchant Center > Configuration screen.