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Product feed
Also known as: Merchant feed · Catalog feed
A structured export of product data (title, price, availability, attributes, images) that a merchant submits to an agent surface for indexing. Base-layer infrastructure for AI Search Visibility.
A product feed is the machine-readable file (usually XML or JSON) that a merchant submits to an agent surface — ChatGPT Merchant Center, Bing Shopping, Google Merchant Center, Amazon Marketplace listings, etc. — to make products discoverable.
Feed quality is a load-bearing signal. Rich, complete, fresh feeds outrank sparse, stale ones. Key attributes: stable product ID (GTIN preferred), complete title + brand + category, all applicable structured attributes, current price + availability + shipping data.
Refresh cadence matters. Daily is table stakes. Hourly is better. Real-time webhooks are the gold standard for high-velocity categories (fashion, seasonal, promotional).
For merchants on Shopify, product feeds to Google + Bing + ChatGPT are largely automated. Custom stacks need explicit feed generation and submission. In both cases, feed hygiene should be part of the ongoing operational rhythm.
See also
ChatGPT Merchant Center
OpenAI's product-feed submission channel — the direct path for brands to submit product catalogs to ChatGPT's shopping subsystem.
Canonicalization
The process by which an AI agent decides which brand's version of a product is the 'canonical' one to recommend when multiple brands sell similar SKUs. Built over time via content depth + review + external authority.
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