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Shoptimizer is a REST API for automating improvements to product data for Shopping Ads.
Shoptimizer accepts a JSON payload of product data in the same format as a Content API for Shopping products.custombatch call. Shoptimizer sanitizes and optimizes the product data, and returns it to the client. This optimized product data can then be sent to Content API for Shopping.
Please refer to the following documentation for how to use this solution.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Merchant Center | A tool that lets you upload and store product data to Google and make it available for Shopping ads. |
| Content API for Shopping | An API for interacting with Merchant Center. |
| Content API Client | A solution for sending product data to Content API for Shopping. This is a generic term and does not refer to a specific codebase. For example, this could be a Python program that uses Google APIs to make Content API for Shopping calls to upload data to Merchant Center. |
| Shoptimizer | A REST API that can be integrated into a Content API Client to automate improvements to product data before it is sent to Merchant Center. |
| Optimizer | An isolated block of optimization logic within Shoptimizer. Individual optimizers can be enabled and disabled. |
| Builtin Optimizer | An optimizer that comes bundled with Shoptimizer. |
| Plugin Optimizer | A custom optimizer that you can develop and add to Shoptimzier. |
| Optimization | Modifying data in an attempt to improve performance. The original data is not incorrect. |
| Sanitization | Correcting or removing invalid data. If this data is not corrected or removed, the product will be disapproved. |
Shoptimizer contains the following built-in optimizers. Note: some of these optimizers rely on configuration files to execute their business logic. Please see the section on Config Files to understand how to configure these properly.
| Optimizer Key | Type | Potentially Modified Attributes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| adult-optimizer | Optimization | adult | Sets the "adult" attribute on a product when the optimizer determines that the product is adult-oriented. |
| color-length-optimizer | Optimization | color | Fixes the length of the color attribute. This optimizer does three things: 1. Ensures the total length of the color attribute is <= 100 characters 2. Removes any color with a length > 40 characters 3. Ensures there are no more than 3 colors in the list of colors. This will prevent the color attribute from being rejected. |
| condition-optimizer | Sanitization | condition | If the condition field is specified as "new", but other fields in the product imply that the condition is otherwise, this optimizer will set the condition value to "used". This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval. (It is also possible that accounts that misrepresent condition can be suspended.) |
| description-optimizer | Optimization | description | Appends the following product attributes to the product description if they could be mined: brand, color, sizes, gender. It will also create the description from these attributes if it does not exist. These mined fields being in the description have a possibility to increase ad performance. (This optimizer will also perform attribute mining: brand, color, sizes, and gender attributes will be added to the product fields if they do not exist and could be mined.) |
| free-shipping-optimizer | Sanitization | shipping | Sets the free shipping attribute to 0 when a free shipping pattern is detected in the title. This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval. It must be run before title-optimizer. |
| identifier-exists-optimizer | Sanitization | identifierExists | Removes invalid identifierExists fields. Items that have a brand, mpn, or gtin set and identifierExists as "false" cause disapproval, so this optimizer will delete the identifierExists value in these cases, which defaults the value to true via Content API. This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval. |
| image-link-optimizer | Sanitization/Optimization | imageLink, additionalImageLink | Identifies imageLinks that are likely to cause this product to be disapproved (invalid URL format, file size is too large, included ML model determines that the image contains an overlay), and if at least one additionalImageLink is not likely to be disapproved, swaps the imageLink URL with the best available additionalImageLink. See the documentation for Image Link Optimizer for details. |
| invalid-chars-optimizer | Sanitization/Optimization | description, title | Removes invalid chars from the product title and description. Invalid chars are those with code points that map to the Unicode private use area (0xE000-0xF8FF). This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval if the invalid char is in the title, and lead to the description not being rejected if the invalid char is in the description. |
| mpn-optimizer | Sanitization | mpn | Removes invalid MPN fields. Certain MPN values will cause products to be disapproved. If an invalid MPN value is detected, this optimizer will delete it. This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval. The list of invalid MPNs can be found in mpn_optimizer.py. |
| product-type-length-optimizer | Optimization | productTypes | Fixes the length of the productTypes attribute. This optimizer ensures there are no more than 10 categories in the list of productTypes. |
| promo-text-removal-optimizer | Sanitization | title | Removes words from the title that could potentially cause product disapprovals due to promotional text detection. The words to remove are controlled via a config file via both regex and exact matches. |
| shopping-exclusion-optimizer | Sanitization | excludedDestinations, includedDestinations | Detects products that should not be meant to be served as Shopping ads (these types of products may cause disapproval in Merchant Center) using term matches from a customizable config file against the product's title, and upon detection of these products, the optimizer will add the Shopping Ads destination to the Content API request attribute "excludedDestinations" and remove the Shopping Ads destination from the Content API request attribute "includedDestinations", if it exists. |
| size-length-optimizer | Optimization | sizes | The sizes attribute consists of a list containing a single string. This optimizer will trim the sizes attribute to 100 characters and ensure the sizes attribute only contains one value. This will prevent the sizes attribute from being rejected. |
| title-length-optimizer | Sanitization/Optimization | title | Truncates title to the max title length if its length exceeds the max value. This will lead to the product avoiding disapproval. Also, if the title is a truncated version of the description, and there is space to expand the title, the title will be expanded. This is expected to improve product performance. |
| title-optimizer | Sanitization/Optimization | title | Optimizes title. It will create the title from the description if the title does not exist, truncate the title if it overflows, or complement the title with the description if the title is truncated from the description. It will also remove promotional text from the title. It also appends product attributes to the title after mining them. This is expected to improve product performance. Supported attributes: gender, color, sizes, brand. (This optimizer will also perform attribute mining: brand, color, sizes, and gender attributes will be added to the product fields if they do not exist and could be mined.) |
| title-word-order-optimizer | Optimization | title | See the documentation for Title Word Order Optimizer for details. Optimizes titles using the associated config that specifies title keywords that have high-performing weights for specific product categories. A product in that category whose title contains the high-performing keywords will have its title rearranged to put the matching keywords to the front / back of the title so they are more prominently displayed in the ad. (Note, due to the nature of the data processing logic, if this optimizer is specified, it will be forced to be run after all other optimizers regardless of query string order.) |