Glopal’s goal is to provide a localized and comfortable experience to international shoppers. That’s why, as soon as an international visitor lands on your domestic site, Glopal detects their location and redirects them instantly to the relevant localized site where they can shop in their language and currency. 

However, according to Google Shopping policy, when using your item feed to run Google Shopping campaigns, internet users that click on your ads should land on a page whose URL is the same as the one used to advertise the item. As a result, redirection to another site, even to a more relevant one based on your location, may on a rare occasion lead to an ad being disapproved for a language, URL, or price mismatch.

Glopal provides an easy way to disable this automatic redirection. You simply need to append the parameter “wi=off” to the URL of all your feed items used for Google Shopping.

Note: Whether your URLs end with or without a / doesn't matter.

Shopping campaigns - Product pages

Option A: Modifying the item URLs from your e-commerce platform or feed management tool

Note: If you use custom mobile page URLs, you need to apply the below changes to those as well.

Case 1: You don’t use any parameters in your existing URL

• Existing URL: https://yoursite.com/product-url
• New URL with parameter: https://yoursite.com/product-url?wi=off

Note that since you’re not using parameters at all, you need to add ? before appending the parameter wi=off.

Case 2: You already use parameters in your existing URL

• Existing URL: https://yoursite.com/product-url?param1=value1&param2=value2
• New URL with parameter: https://yoursite.com/product-url?param1=value1&param2=value2&wi=off

Note that since you’re already using parameters, you need to add & before appending the parameter wi=off, like for any other parameter.

Option B: Modifying the URLs directly in the Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center has a native feature enabling merchants to apply rules on their feed. You can set up rules to append the extra parameter to your item's URLs.

1. Go to your Merchant Center account > Products > Feeds
2. In the Primary feeds section, click on the one that you use for your Google Shopping campaigns. It usually is Content API.
3. Go to Feed rules and click on the big blue + button, to add a new rule
4. In the prompt, search and select link
5. A new page will load with a block titled Edit source, click Cancel
6. On the left side panel, in the Modification section, click on Add modification
7. You will see 5 tiles, click on the one titled Optimize URL
8. From the dropdown, select Set parameter
9. In the first input box called Parameter name, input wi, and hit Enter
10. In the second input box called Value, input off, and hit Enter
11. The configuration should look like this:
12. Click Ok. On your right, Google will simulate the change, and show you how your new URL will look like.
13. Click on Save as draft. You will get back to the feed rules overview. 
14. Click on Apply. 
15. The Merchant Center will then apply (it takes a few minutes) the rule to all your items. This rule will also be applied automatically every time you update your feed, and even on the new items you add to your feed.

Note: If you wish to check what changes will occur, click on Test changes. After verification, you still need to click on Apply for the rule to apply on your feed.

Note: If you use custom mobile page URLs, you need to apply the above changes to those as well. Then, at step #4, instead of searching and selecting link, search and select mobile link. Then all the other steps are exactly the same.

Removing a rule

If you wish to remove a rule:

1. Go to your Merchant Center account > Products > Feeds
2. In the Primary feeds section, click on the one that you use for your Google Shopping campaigns. It usually is Content API.
3. Go to Feed rules. The previously set rules are listed.
4. Mouse over the rule you wish to delete. A trash bin icon will appear next to the attribute name. Click on the trash bin icon. 
5. A pop-up window will appear with a message asking for your confirmation, click Remove.

Non-Shopping campaigns

The above section treats the Shopping campaigns, meaning when you have Google Shopping campaigns which landing pages are the product pages. That is why the redirection was nullified at the product catalog or at the Merchant Center level.

However, you may have campaigns using your home page or category/listing page as a landing page and, in these cases, Google will also be redirected if the parameter is not set. You may then end up with a similar Destination mismatch error on your ads.

To counter that, you'll need to add the parameter to the landing URL configured in your campaigns.

Below is an example of a Search ad, you'll need to add wi=off to the Final URL suffix attribute.

If you have a large number of campaigns and ads to edit, you could set the suffix at the account level.

1. On the left hand side menu, in Settings > Account settings > Tracking
2. Add wi=off to the Final URL suffix attribute.
3. Click on Save