Hey Guys (and Gals), We've got a webstore with over 11,000 products, thus, 11,000 images - all watermarked. Google just sent an email that our shopping account will be suspended if our product listing are not "brought into compliance with Google Shopping feed specification and Google Shopping Policies". Still waiting to hear back from Google in regards to if they can make an exception for already added images, and we won't watermark future images. I'm not optimistic they will make an exception. This is a big headache, and re-doing 11,000 images is CRAZY. Anyone who has experienced this same issue or has any insight on the matter, please advise - it would be much appreciated! Thanks.
That has been a rule for quite some time now. I may have a solution to remove them though. Such as http://www.theinpaint.com/batch-inpaint.html if they are in the same place that may be doable. Running stuff in batches of say 100 would certainly reduce the headache here. hope that helps a bit, Nigel
Nigel, Thanks for the reply. I just started working as Webmaster for an eCommerce store and hadn't been up to speed on Google Shopping's guidelines...was surprised to learn it was an issue, as we hadn't had any problems up until today. I stumbled on Batch InPaint earlier this morning and decided to purchase the Batch version after playing with the trial version ($20 is quite reasonable). It works near-flawlessly and will certainly make things a lot easier!
Make sure to communicate with them that you're working on it. They're pretty good about giving extra time and actually working with their advertising customers.
They've been reasonable in the past, but we asked for a time extension or an exception for existing watermarked images with this current issue and they declined.
I can't believe Google is ask you not to watermark your own images. Why? Don't we have the right to protect our intellectual property anymore? Our companys goes the extra mile to make sure we retain the rights to our content.
The problem is that they integrate images from their product ads feeds into their own shopping pages. They don't want to have proprietary or copyrighted images on products that multiple companies are advertising for.