Answer
Jul 02, 2025 - 09:22 AM
We've run into many scenarios where we see a dramatic drop in the number of valid "Merchant Listings" Google Search Console is showing within their reports.....and you can see a dramatic drop without anything turning invalid. See this example:
The frustrating thing about this is that it's not obvious within the Google Search Console reports on what has happened or why...you're just all the sudden "less visible" by a notable margin. The first thing to understand is what drives "Merchant Listings" and it's NOT ONLY MERCHANT CENTER (and sometimes not merchant center at all). There are ecommerce sites that aren't even on Google Merchant Center....and showing just fine. See this site that isn't on merchant center that has 2-5 of the top 10 positions 80% of the time.
SIDE NOTE: The below site has a domain authority of zero by the way and ranked higher than Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, etc.....if your agency is still harping on the "domain authority" that their "seo tool" is spitting out....you should talk to us about getting you with a good ecommerce SEO agency. SEO isn't the same since the helpful content updates and AI, and we see that way too many agencies are hanging onto lost SEO tactiics because it supports their revenue streams. We have several ecommerce SEO agencies that we work with and can point you to, so schedule that call above and we'll connect you (no charge).
Those "Popular Products" tables....they are "Merchant Listings" and Google expanded eligibility of them to basically any product page with structured data on it. So no, you don't need to be on Merchant Center.....and with just a quick look at your specific site we can typically identify things that are some pretty quick wins from a "Merchant Listings" visibility standpoint. For example....see this lift where this merchant goes from 1900 valid merchant listings to over 120K.
We run into these opportunities way too often...and the worst part is when the ecommerce merchant is paying an agency outrageous retainer fees and they don't have relatively simple stuff in place that can show these changes. We do a quick check on this stuff with every demo....and most of the time it doesn't require an agency to interact with you at all....we can just point out a few things to address and you'll see that type of activity within a couple weeks...and most of the time it's just some relatively simple adjustments in your structured data that your "Schema Checker" or "SEO Tools" aren't picking up. They'll show you all green which makes you think you're ok....but you're not. We encourage you to schedule a quick call and we'll do a quick check for you (within 5 minutes).....and if there is a quick win that you can walk away with a spike or recovery like the above, we'll just be happy we serviced you well. Also, keep in mind...if you are paying an agency a decent amount of money that promises cake/candy when it comes to SEO but you're skeptical....and doesn't have things like this in place....at least you'll know you're working with the wrong people and we can give you an introduction to a few agencies that we trust (there's not many).
The frustrating thing about this is that it's not obvious within the Google Search Console reports on what has happened or why...you're just all the sudden "less visible" by a notable margin. The first thing to understand is what drives "Merchant Listings" and it's NOT ONLY MERCHANT CENTER (and sometimes not merchant center at all). There are ecommerce sites that aren't even on Google Merchant Center....and showing just fine. See this site that isn't on merchant center that has 2-5 of the top 10 positions 80% of the time.
SIDE NOTE: The below site has a domain authority of zero by the way and ranked higher than Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, etc.....if your agency is still harping on the "domain authority" that their "seo tool" is spitting out....you should talk to us about getting you with a good ecommerce SEO agency. SEO isn't the same since the helpful content updates and AI, and we see that way too many agencies are hanging onto lost SEO tactiics because it supports their revenue streams. We have several ecommerce SEO agencies that we work with and can point you to, so schedule that call above and we'll connect you (no charge).
Those "Popular Products" tables....they are "Merchant Listings" and Google expanded eligibility of them to basically any product page with structured data on it. So no, you don't need to be on Merchant Center.....and with just a quick look at your specific site we can typically identify things that are some pretty quick wins from a "Merchant Listings" visibility standpoint. For example....see this lift where this merchant goes from 1900 valid merchant listings to over 120K.
We run into these opportunities way too often...and the worst part is when the ecommerce merchant is paying an agency outrageous retainer fees and they don't have relatively simple stuff in place that can show these changes. We do a quick check on this stuff with every demo....and most of the time it doesn't require an agency to interact with you at all....we can just point out a few things to address and you'll see that type of activity within a couple weeks...and most of the time it's just some relatively simple adjustments in your structured data that your "Schema Checker" or "SEO Tools" aren't picking up. They'll show you all green which makes you think you're ok....but you're not. We encourage you to schedule a quick call and we'll do a quick check for you (within 5 minutes).....and if there is a quick win that you can walk away with a spike or recovery like the above, we'll just be happy we serviced you well. Also, keep in mind...if you are paying an agency a decent amount of money that promises cake/candy when it comes to SEO but you're skeptical....and doesn't have things like this in place....at least you'll know you're working with the wrong people and we can give you an introduction to a few agencies that we trust (there's not many).
