In the second quarter of this year, Google revealed a number of modifications to the Merchant Center worth looking into.

A brief overview of new features:

1. Attribute "pause"

In April, Google introduced the "pause" attribute. This feature allows you to temporarily pause ads without any need for "out_of_stock" or "availability" features use. This transformation was necessary because in some cases it is not profitable for a merchant to completely stop advertising, as the product will be available for buy again in the nearest future.

2. Availability dates for pre-order items

Recently, all products with the marker “backorder” or “preorder” will require to indicate the time when the product will be back in stock with the help of the “availability date” function. The period is specified as up to twelve months, after this period the goods may be rejected.

3. Unsupported shopping content

As of this month, Google has revised its unsupported purchase content policy, highlighting the feature descriptions for electric bicycles.

Google claims

“E-bikes will still be permitted to be sold as long as their top speed with the engine running does not exceed 25 km/h (15.5 mph). However, now the information about such products must indicate the speed of the bike. This information must be provided on the landing page, as well as in the title or description of the item. Lack of speed data will be considered a violation of the rules and lead to the rejection of the goods.

A complete list of unsupported content can be found in Google Help.