Connecting a Google Review XML Feed

If your review platform isn't one Renable connects to directly (Trustpilot, Yotpo, TestFreaks, Bazaarvoice), there's a universal option: a review feed in Google Product Review XML format. It's the same format Google Merchant Center uses for product-review programs, so most review platforms and e-commerce plugins can generate one.

Step 1: get a review feed URL#

You need a URL that serves an XML file following Google's Product Review Feeds specification. Where it comes from depends on your setup:

• Your review platform may offer a "Google review feed", "Google Shopping reviews", or similarly named export — check its integrations or export settings, or ask its support whether it can give you the feed as a URL. Google keeps a list of eligible review aggregators that already send reviews to Google in this format, which is a good place to start.
• Your e-commerce platform may have a plugin that generates one from on-site reviews (common for WooCommerce and Magento stores).

Open the URL in a browser — you should see XML with <review> entries.

Step 2: connect it in Renable#

On the catalog's page, open the review-feed settings, choose the Google Product Review XML feed option, and paste the feed URL. Or ask Aimée on the catalog page ("connect our review feed, here's the URL") — she validates that the URL serves a readable review feed before saving it.

Matching reviews to products#

Each <review> in the feed names the product it belongs to (by product ID, GTIN, MPN, or product URL, per Google's format). Renable matches those against your product feed's identifiers — Product ID, Item group ID, Brand+MPN, or GTIN. If reviews aren't landing on the right products, compare the identifiers in the review feed against your product feed; a mismatch there is the most common cause.

Good to know#

• Reviews import on a recurring daily schedule: the feed is downloaded every day and imported whenever its contents have changed since the last complete import, or the previous import did not complete, so new reviews appear without any manual step.
• The feed is read as the complete list of your reviews, the way Google reads it: a review that is no longer in the feed is removed from Renable at the next import, and stops appearing in your ads.
• A review the feed marks as spam (is_spam) counts as not being in the feed: it isn't imported, and if it was imported before, it is removed at the next import, together with any approval or edit you gave it. If the feed later stops marking it as spam, it comes back as a new, unapproved review.
• A review whose reviewer the feed marks as anonymous (is_anonymous on the reviewer's name) is shown without a name, like any review the feed sends without one: where an ad shows the stars and the name, it shows just the stars.
• If the feed states a review's language (review_language, a language code such as sv or sv-SE), Renable uses it, unless the review's text is clearly written in another language. A value that isn't one of the languages Renable works with (a country code such as se or dk instead of sv or da, for example) is ignored, and the language is read from the review's text.
• If the feed can't be downloaded, ends before it is complete, or contains no reviews (for example because the address now points to a product feed), the catalog shows an error and nothing is removed — your products keep the reviews from the last complete import, and the import tries again on its next run.
• If a review in the feed can't be identified (it has neither a review ID nor a review date), Renable can't tell which stored review it is, so it stops removing reviews for that feed: new and changed reviews still import, but reviews taken out of the feed stay on your products. The catalog shows an error naming the review's position in the feed, and removals resume at the first import in which every review can be identified.