Ecommerce store audit worksheet
Use this store audit worksheet to record how one store and five of its products do on the 31-point checklist. Print it or use the spreadsheet.
Published
Worksheet for checklist v0.1Part A: store · Part B: 5 products
How to use the store audit worksheet
- Print this page, or download the worksheet as a spreadsheet (CSV).
- Part A: check each store setting once.
- Part B: pick five products at different prices. If you have them, include one with variants and one on sale.
- For each check, write yes, no, partly, not applicable or unknown, and note what you saw.
Each check’s ID links to its full entry in the product feed checklist.
| ID | Check | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| I1 | Give every product and variant a stable, unique ID. Product identity | ||
| U1 | Leave Merchant Center's automations on. Keeping data current | ||
| U2 | Clear open price and availability mismatches in Merchant Center. Keeping data current | ||
| U3 | Keep a dated record of price and stock changes. Keeping data current | ||
| S1 | Set shipping costs and delivery times for each country you ship to. Shipping and returns | ||
| S2 | Publish a return policy and add it to Merchant Center. Shipping and returns | ||
| S3 | Mark up return and shipping policies at store level. Shipping and returns | ||
| R2 | Send product reviews to Merchant Center, or have a supported review aggregator send them to Google. Reviews | ||
| G1 | Turn on Google's free listings and check products are approved. Programs and settings | ||
| G2 | Leave your site included in Google Search's generative AI features. Programs and settings | ||
| G3 | Read Merchant Center's AI performance report. Programs and settings | ||
| G4 | Consider Google's conversational attributes. Programs and settings | ||
| G5 | If OpenAI accepts you as a merchant, send its product feed daily. Programs and settings | ||
| G6 | Keep a Microsoft Merchant Center feed. Programs and settings | ||
| A1 | Allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt and at your firewall. Access for crawlers | ||
| A2 | Allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt and at your firewall. Access for crawlers | ||
| A3 | Let Bingbot crawl product pages, without NOARCHIVE or NOCACHE tags. Access for crawlers |
| ID | Check | Product 1 | Product 2 | Product 3 | Product 4 | Product 5 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I2 | Send the manufacturer's GTIN for every product that has one. Product identity | ||||||
| I3 | Set the brand, and the MPN when there's no GTIN. Product identity | ||||||
| I4 | Put the same identifiers in the page's Product markup. Product identity | ||||||
| I5 | Make the feed title name the same product as the page. Product identity | ||||||
| I6 | Use main and additional images of at least 500 by 500 pixels. Product identity | ||||||
| I7 | Give full product details: price, stock, specifications and reviews. Product identity | ||||||
| P1 | Show the same price in the feed, page, markup and checkout. Price and availability | ||||||
| P2 | Put price and stock in the first HTML, unchanged after load. Price and availability | ||||||
| P3 | Send sale prices as sale_price, with the regular price in price. Price and availability | ||||||
| P4 | Show the same availability in the feed, page, markup and checkout. Price and availability | ||||||
| V1 | Give each variant its own ID and link, with a shared item_group_id. Variants | ||||||
| V2 | Mark up variants as a ProductGroup. Variants | ||||||
| R1 | Mark up only reviews that shoppers can see on the page. Reviews | ||||||
| A4 | Show crawlers the same product, price and stock as shoppers. Access for crawlers |