DiffGears Google Audit + Merchant Center Setup

Date: 2026-07-22 (America/Los_Angeles data windows end 2026-07-21)
Site: https://www.diffgears.com/
Workspace: /Users/dorianj/Documents/DiffGears/11ty
Service account: seo-mcp@my-sites-seo.iam.gserviceaccount.com
GCP project: my-sites-seo (597899613754)

Executive summary

Merchant feed cleanup completed: renamed primary FILE feed to DiffGears Google Shopping; no broken legacy FILE feeds found to delete; Autofeed left intact.

1. Search Console

Property & sitemaps

• Property confirmed: https://www.diffgears.com/ (siteFullUser)
• Sitemap: https://www.diffgears.com/sitemap.xml
  • Last submitted (GSC): 2019-03-27 (stale submit date; file itself is fresh on origin)
  • Last downloaded by Google: 2026-07-23
  • Submitted URLs: 1,270
  • Indexed (sitemap report): 0
  • Warnings: 243, Errors: 0

Totals

Devices (~28d / ~90d)

Countries (90d, by clicks)

• USA 24 clicks / 952 impr (CTR 2.5%, pos 30.1)
• Canada 4 / 74
• Australia, Mexico, NZ 1 each
• Long tail of zero-click international impressions

Top queries by impressions (90d)

Privacy threshold hides most click attribution (only 10004209 shows a click in the query dimension; total clicks still 31).

Insight: Brand/generic head terms sit deep (pos 50–80). SKU/part queries (ai88342, ai85342) rank page 1 but with almost no clicks — titles/snippets or intent mismatch likely.

Top pages by clicks (90d)

Insight: Category + product long-tail drives the few clicks. Homepage is heavily impressed but not competitive (pos ~65).

Trend notes

• Late April–May: intermittent 1–2 clicks/day.
• Mid–late June → July: impressions still trickle but clicks nearly flatlined (only 3 in last 28d).
• Crawl-delay in robots is aggressive (see recommendations).

Stale / odd GSC URLs

Still receiving impressions for legacy paths that may not match the current 11ty IA, e.g.:

• /brand/richmond-gear-pro/page/2/?add-to-cart=405 (WooCommerce-era)

2. GA4 (DiffGears - GA4 / 371325100)

Property: Automotive, America/Los_Angeles, USD, created 2023-04-21
Measurement ID on site: G-RJ8R52H6QR
Google Ads links: none

Channels (~28d)

*“Conversions” here are almost certainly marked key events (e.g. begin_checkout / view_cart), not purchases.

Channels (~90d)

• Direct: 1,564 sessions, bounce 92% → bot-heavy period
• Organic: 363 sessions, bounce 37%
• AI Assistant: 1
• Referral: 6
• No Paid Search / Shopping / Paid Shopping channel

Sources (~28d)

Note: Bing + DDG users outnumber Google organic users in GA4 28d, while GSC shows only 3 Google clicks. GA4 “google / organic” is session-heavy for few users (returning research sessions).

United States only (~28d) — cleaner demand signal

US organic is engaged; global totals are polluted by China Direct.

Devices (~28d)

• Desktop 333 sessions / 307 users (bounce 57%)
• Mobile 43 / 30 (bounce 21%)

Countries (~28d) — bot / suspicious traffic

Top cities are almost all China industrial clusters: Suzhou (64), Guangzhou (55), Shenzhen (40), Huizhou (35) — classic scraper pattern (1 session/user, Direct, Chrome/Windows).

Ecommerce events (~28d global)

Funnel is inverted: begin_checkout ≫ add_to_cart ≫ view_item. Site is an Amazon affiliate cart (js/analytics.js); begin_checkout fires when leaving for Amazon. Likely causes of inflation:

1. view_cart / begin_checkout re-fired from persisted cart sessions (incl. scrapers hitting cart-related paths).
2. Those events marked as key events → inflated “conversions”.
3. No purchase (expected for Amazon handoff unless postback/Amazon attribution is added).

US-only still shows 202 begin_checkout / 202 view_cart vs 9 add_to_cart / 40 view_item — instrumentation needs review even after bot filtering.

Top item views (~28d)

Powertrax 2110-LR, Allstar ALL70113, Richmond Gear Pro 79-0021-1, various Yukon / USA Standard / Revolution Gear SKUs. 0 item revenue / purchases.

Landing pages (~28d)

1. / — 125 sessions (bounce 62%)
2. (not set) — 22 (bot-like)
3. /tech-tips/ring-and-pinion-break-in-guide — 13 (strong engagement ~170s avg on page views)
4. Axle hubs: AMC 20, GM 9.25 IFS, Dana S110, product PDPs

3. Merchant Center (account 5571336334)

Access & registration

Programs

Account issues

1. ERROR: Pending Google Ads account link request — required before Shopping ads can serve.

Data sources — before / after

Before

After (final)

Broken legacy FILE feeds deleted: none found (only one FILE source, already healthy).
Content API / GLA retirement: completed — product list is now 582 FILE-only (0 gla_* remaining).

Last successful FILE upload

Product inventory

Before cleanup: FILE 582 + Content API 502 = 1,084 (0 offer-id overlap; ASINs vs gla_*).

Top item-level issues (Shopping ads US)

Product performance (MCQL)

Top offer by clicks (28d): Powertrax 2110-LR (b00ivqnyks) — 1 click.

No paid Shopping traffic yet (Ads account not linked).

Changes made in Merchant Center

1. Renamed FILE feed 10677224708: PRODUCTS SOURCE 3 → DiffGears Google Shopping
2. Confirmed fetch URI, daily schedule, Free listings + Shopping ads destinations enabled
3. Triggered :fetch → SUCCEEDED, 582 items
4. Restored SA rights to Admin + Standard + Performance reporting
5. Did not delete Autofeed
6. Deleted Content API data source 10678769718
7. Bulk-deleted ~502 legacy gla_* productInputs (two-pass; final count 0 remaining)

4. Local / live Google Shopping feed

Feed strengths: Unique IDs, HTTPS product links, MPN present, condition=new, consistent currency USD, live file reachable.

Feed risks for Merchant approval:

1. identifier_exists=no + no GTINs → weaker free listings / Shopping eligibility for branded products.
2. Zero-price OOS items — fixed in generator 2026-07-30 (omit OOS / price≤0). Needs deploy + update-live-feeds.sh on production.
3. Amazon-hosted images can be fragile (hotlink policy / availability).
4. Missing shipping / account-level shipping setup.
5. Missing product_type / thin taxonomy → poorer categorization beyond google_product_category=2935.

Repo fixes 2026-07-30 (pending production deploy):

• Feed: skip OOS/$0 → ~534 in-stock items locally (was 582 with 48–55 zeros)
• robots.txt: Crawl-delay * 60 → 10
• Analytics: throttle view_cart to once/session; keep Amazon handoff as real conversion path
• Status emailed to dorianjepsen@pm.me

Recommended Merchant primary feed URL:

https://www.diffgears.com/feeds/google-shopping.xml

5. Prioritized recommendations

P0 — Unblock Merchant + indexation

1. Grant Merchant Center access to the SA (exact steps below). Provide numeric account ID if multi-account.
2. After access: run registerGcp (if needed) → clean feeds to single healthy FILE source.
3. Investigate sitemap “0 indexed” + 243 warnings in GSC → Coverage / Page indexing.
4. Soften crawl limits:
   • Crawl-delay: 60 for User-agent: * is very aggressive (Bing honors this; Google mostly ignores crawl-delay but the signal + Disallow: /*?* may still hurt).
   • Confirm important faceted URLs aren’t needed; keep cart/go blocked.

P1 — SEO growth (low traffic, deep positions)

1. Title/meta for homepage and brand queries (diff gears, differential gears) — currently pos 50–80.
2. Double down on SKU / axle hub pages that already rank top 20 (ai88342, Dana S110, G2 4.56 PDPs, Chrysler 7.25 R&P pos 1).
3. Expand tech content like ring-and-pinion break-in (strong engagement).
4. Fix/redirect legacy WooCommerce URLs still getting impressions.
5. Re-submit sitemap after major deploys; request indexing for top money pages.

P1 — GA4 hygiene

1. Filter or exclude China bot traffic (IP / geo data filter, or investigate server-side blocking for obvious scrapers).
2. Review which events are key events — do not mark view_cart / begin_checkout as primary conversions if they fire repeatedly; prefer view_on_amazon + add_to_cart.
3. Fix inverted funnel instrumentation (ensure view_item on PDPs, add_to_cart only on add, begin_checkout only on Amazon handoff once).
4. No Shopping channel yet — expected until Merchant + Ads are live.

P2 — Feed quality (before heavy Shopping spend)

1. Populate GTINs where available; set identifier_exists correctly.
2. Exclude or fix $0.00 products (don’t submit OOS zeros if policy flags).
3. Host product images on diffgears.com (or stable CDN you control).
4. Add product_type breadcrumbs and shipping.
5. Unescape & in brand/title XML text nodes if double-encoding.

P3 — Ads

1. Link Google Ads ↔ GA4 when ready.
2. Enable Free listings first; Shopping ads after feed + account issues clear.

6. Merchant Center changes made

Final data-source list

1. 10528964949 — Autofeed diffgears.com (keep)
2. 10677224708 — DiffGears Google Shopping (FILE, primary, daily HTTPS fetch)

7. Open items for you (browser)

A. Merchant / Ads (recommended)

1. Link Google Ads to Merchant Center 5571336334 (clears missing-ad-words-link / ADS_ACCOUNT_LINKED).
2. Verify phone and add customer service email/URL under business info.
3. Retire Content API / GLA — done (expect Diagnostics aggregate counts to lag for a bit).
4. Optional: review the 1 guns/parts policy disapproval in Diagnostics.

B. Feed / site (engineering)

1. Exclude or fix 53 × $0.00 products (largest disapproval bucket).
2. GTINs / correct identifier_exists; self-host images; add shipping + product_type.
3. GSC Page indexing for sitemap 0-indexed / 243 warnings.
4. Soften Crawl-delay: 60 if you want faster Bing/other crawlers.

8. Appendix — key IDs

Generated from Search Console MCP, Analytics MCP, Merchant Data MCP (local), live feed fetch, and site robots/sitemap inspection.