GoogleBot can add products to shopping carts. But it’s only happening to these specific merchants. By Roger Montti.
Contrary to common impressions about this topic, Google isn’t crawling and adding products to random shopping carts. What’s really going on is that merchants who participate in Google Shopping (or Google’s back-end for sellers the Merchant Center and Shopping ads) agree to have their sites crawled, including their shopping cart.
Examples of issues Google is checking for are:
- Failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose the payment model and full expense that a user will bear before and after purchase
- Failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose all related conditions before and after purchase
- Promising products or promotional offers that aren’t available for users
- Making false statements about your identity, qualifications, or the promoted product (such as falsely claiming to be a certified reseller or using a brand name to promote another product)
- Using false claims or claims that entice the user with an improbable result (even if this result is possible) as the likely outcome that a user can expect
- Falsely implying affiliation with, or endorsement by, another individual, organization, product, or service
Very insightful for anybody working in e-commerce. Recommended read!
[Read More]