I was getting the exact same error in 7.4.11 until I made the same code change to remove the following:
itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/OfferItemCondition"

Is it possible to get this fix incorporated into the 7.4.x line, please?

Also, I get "Invalid string length in field 'description' (optional)"
- It appears that Google only supports 'description' values up to 5,000 chars long - Is it possible to truncate the given data at that point, and, better, to also add a warning to the Admin to highlight proddetail content that is over-long, please?

Thanks in advance :-)

Pragmasis Limited
https://SecurityForBikes.com

Hi SBriggs,

quote:

---

Also, I get "Invalid string length in field 'description' (optional)"
- It appears that Google only supports 'description' values up to 5,000 chars long - Is it possible to truncate the given data at that point, and, better, to also add a warning to the Admin to highlight proddetail content that is over-long, please?

---

I expect this has to do with a "feed" you are providing to Google.
If so, the thing to do is alter the feed code to truncate the description.

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

No, not yet, Google is only getting the data from crawling the site and it has only just started to show these issues today, since I added the following in includes.php:

$setschemacondition=TRUE; // Enables Google rich snippet data for product detail pages
$setschemaavailability=TRUE; // ...and for InStock/OutOfStock availability

Looking at the HTML that is being generated, I have some pages with multiple Spry tabs that have a lot of text overall, so the complaint from Google is justified, I think. It seems prudent to limit these fields to 5,000 chars maximum, even when the user's view is spread across several tabs.

Thanks,

Steve.

Pragmasis Limited
https://SecurityForBikes.com

Hi Steve, interesting point.

I eventually found the "Google Merchant Center Help" page that provides details about the Product "Description" attribute.

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324468

quote:

---

Format
Limits: 1–5,000 characters

Minimum requirements
Note: If your description does not fit within the character limit, Google will truncate it to fit. You will receive a warning indicating that the description has been truncated.

Describe only the product itself. Don't describe other aspects like details about compatible products, accessories, other similar products available.

Best practices
List the most important details in the first 160 - 500 characters. You can include up to 5,000 characters, but customers will need to click to view product details to see the longer description.

---

In our ECT Product Administration panel we have both "Short Description" and "Long Description". For itemprop="description", Google are saying they only want the "Short Description"; not the "Long Description" which our ECT snippet currently provides.

But notice that Google also say "If your description does not fit within the character limit, Google will truncate it to fit."

On that basis, in the rare case that a Product Description does exceed 5,000 characters, I don't think it would matter. Note that a "Warning" message in the Rich Results Test Tool is not a critical "Error".

Gary

Hi Gary/Dave,

Thanks for the info that Google truncates overlength data without an SEO penalty. It still seems sensible to keep the field below 5,000 chars, esp. bearing in mind that they expect the main info to be in the first 500.

I have given up on GA4 until there is progress on the v7.4.x support for it, or I'm ready to move to ECT 7.5.x. It is too risky to have these tags unreliable as Google appears to remove listings for products where it objects to the tags/data. I.e. better to have none of these than to have something it doesn't like IMHO! (I haven't tried again with the 7.5 incthanks.php so that might make a useful difference if I have time to play with it.)

Thanks,

Steve.

Pragmasis Limited
https://SecurityForBikes.com

Hi All
In the latest release you can now add tags to the product and detail pages layouts with "modifiers" to be replaced by the product id, manufacturer, sku and your custom fields so this all makes things pretty flexible. This is discussed here...
https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/support/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=115349
I have someone reporting that Google is flagging their products because the shipping weight is missing and was going to add a modifier for weight, but can't find a rich snippet to specify that for a product, only a reference in the merchant feed. Does anyone know if it is possible?

Vince

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You are correct Vince. This is not a rich snippet attribute. It is defined in the Google Merchant feed/account.

Mike Beebe
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DataLinks Software Solutions
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Thanks Mike!

Vince

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Hi Vince,

Actually there are new Rich Snippets for the Merchant Listing named: "OfferShippingDetails".

quote:

---

enables people to see shipping costs and estimated delivery timeframes based on their location and your company's shipping policies. To make your products eligible for the shipping details enhancement, add the following OfferShippingDetails properties to your product pages in addition to Product structured data.

While OfferShippingDetails isn't required, the following properties are required if you want your shipping details to be eligible for the shipping details enhancement.

---

Find all the details on the Google Developers page here >>
And the Schema.org page here >>

Note that there is no mention of "shipping weight".

It all looks overly complex to me

Gary