sellers.json file

seeing requests for it - what's it all about?

[SumGuy]

This might be more about the website mechanics and uses / utility of the sellers.json file vs seeing hits for this (seldom used?) information mechanism, so...

Recently I've seen this a few times in my logs:

GET /sellers.json

Checking for previous hits, they all come from 139.91.70.45 ("Foundation of Research and Technology" Hellas - in Greece). I got the same request from the same IP back on Jan 17. The only other request for this file came on July 11 / 2021 from 81.10.143.149 (LIWEST Kabelmedien GmbH).

Here is google's writeup for sellers.json:

[support.google.com...]

I don't believe I've ever seen any search engine, and especially not googlebot, request that file. Quicking looking over the above web link, I can't tell if this is a file that is supposed to sit on your server, or you supply directly to google?

[lucy24]

:: detour to raw logs ::

Hey, what do you know. A handful of requests spanning November 2022 - February this year, all 403, all from different IPs, all but one without a UA. The latter came from 139.91.70.something-else (within the same /29), and only asked for that one file. None of the others came from 81.anything.

All others came as a set, where sellers.json is accompanied by requests for ads.txt and verify-admitads.txt (hm, never heard of that one, either).

:: further dive into older, archived logs ::

Two more in 2021--nothing earlier--one of them from 81.10.etcetera with UA, without other requests; the other from yet another different IP, no UA, same set of three requests.

So that's two different patterns, one of which suggests a rarely-used robotic script.

:: final look at headers, which will only cover the past year ::

The ones without UA all had multiple header deficits, including of course “noagent”; the one with UA had just one deficit--but that’s enough.

[tangor]

sellers.json is a voluntary "transparency" file which benefits g and not you, unlike robots.txt, equally voluntary, benefits websites over bots (and the bots ignore it anyway).

Call me contrary, any "volunteer" files requested where I give away info and get nothing in return, all get either 404 or 403 (depending on obnoxiousness in hits).

All too often these "volunteer" files are abused by hackers, spammers and other bad actors.

Whatever info I want users to find is already in the text/content of my website. I see no reason to give up OTHER facts for something that users won't see unless THEY are looking up these obscure "volunteer" files.

YMMV

[tangor]

OR ... conversely, why do g's job for them? (and at the same time create yet one more way of gaming the system?).

Too many promises made, too many failures to deliver. Play along or not!

[SumGuy]

From Google:

===============
Sellers.json is an IAB Tech Lab standard that increases transparency in the ads ecosystem and helps to combat fraud. Sellers.json works through a publicly-available file of seller information. Publishers can elect to share their individual name or business name (depending on their AdSense account type) in the file. This gives advertisers a reliable way to discover and verify the identity of publishers.

We encourage you to make your information transparent and allow your individual or business name to be listed. This will help advertisers to verify your inventory. If your information isn't made transparent, advertisers won't be able to see your name, which might impact your revenue.
===============

So it's not clear to me if sellers.json is a pure google invention that only they use in conjunction with adwords and/or their advertising mechanism to place ads on your website (or for YOUR ADS to appear on other websites?).

If my company website is how I inform people what we make, but the site is not tied into any ad system or network, then is sellers.json relevent to me?

If on the other hand, google (or bing, or any significant public-facing search engine) can use the info in sellers.json to make better (and maybe more?) search engine results for my site in response to search queries, then it would seem to be in my interest to have a sellers.json file. This depends if google rolls the info from the file into everything else they have when they crawl your site.

In other words, the presence of sellers.json on my site might elevate my google search ranking? Regardless if the site is not tied into an ad ecosystem?

What I find interesting is that google obviously has some interest in sellers.json in terms of promoting its use, yet I don't believe I've ever seen googlebot ask for it. That is in contrast to ads.txt which they do as for from time to time.

[SumGuy]

If an entity has a sellers.json file, shouldn't you be able to retrieve it? I would guess that a candidate entity would be a domain or site that attracts eyeballs and contains ads?

So would you expect google.com/sellers.json or facebook.com/sellers.json to exist?

If you discover one, can someone post the url of a real, legit sellers.json file (or post the domain/site that is hosting one)?

[not2easy]

Google posts their link on that page you linked to in the 1st post, it is: http://realtimebidding.google.com/sellers.json

They encourage anyone to download it and have a look.