Google Test Feed

[whitehorse]

I was leaving the product despription blank, because the product is on a page that alredy describes the product in great detail and I didn't want to be redundant and overbearing by displaying the info all over again, but I guess I need at least a synopsis of the description in it's field? - That makes sense, since that is what google would need in order to display something for the viewer to look at..

[whitehorse]

I think the shopsite system is tierd of me sending test feed, when i submit a feed now, (even with only 1 product set to be included in the google feed ) all that shows up in the report is:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0"
xmlns:batch="http://schemas.google.com/gdata/batch">
<title type="text">http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/index.html Batch Feed</title>
<category scheme="http://base.google.com/categories/itemtypes" term="products"/>
</feed>

No product info...
Does the system on;y allow us a certain number of feeds / day?

[Jim]

ShopSite doesn't have a limit on how often you can create the feed.

There may be something wrong in your product though because this line looks incorrect.

<title type="text">http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/index.html Batch Feed</title>

Is that really the title? A url to your main page and "Batch Feed"?

Are you sure you have one product assigned to the feed? And does that product have all of the necessary data? If you have it configured to send the quantity and the item is out of stock it won't be sent. So check that you have all fields filled out and that you have some of the item for sale.

Jim

[whitehorse]

ShopSite doesn't have a limit on how often you can create the feed.

There may be something wrong in your product though because this line looks incorrect.

<title type="text">http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/index.html Batch Feed</title>

Is that really the title? A url to your main page and "Batch Feed"?

Are you sure you have one product assigned to the feed? And does that product have all of the necessary data? If you have it configured to send the quantity and the item is out of stock it won't be sent. So check that you have all fields filled out and that you have some of the item for sale.

Jim

The <title> is set automatically by the system, I have no control over that ,that I know of...(Do I? )

I found my problem,,I had entered "In Stock" instead of a number for the "quantity" field. I now have 5, and it worked.

[whitehorse]

OK, I did a test run with this feed from shopsite yesterday ;

<?xml version='1.0'?> <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" xmlns:batch="http://schemas.google.com/gdata/batch"> <title type="text">http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/index.html Batch Feed</title> <category scheme="http://base.google.com/categories/itemtypes" term="products"/> <entry> <batch:id>PID#1</batch:id> <batch:operation type="insert"/> <g:id>PID#1</g:id> <g:application>ShopSite Manager 10 r7.2 for Linux</g:application> <g:application_domain>http://shopsite.com/</g:application_domain> <g:expiration_date>2012-03-27</g:expiration_date> <title><![CDATA[Mare Magic - 8oz]]></title> <g:description><![CDATA[Mare Magic is one of our best sellers. It's known to help influence a quiet disposition in mares and geldings.]]></g:description> <g:price>12.20</g:price> <g:image_link>http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/media/Supplements/Calming/ss_size3/SmallMareMagic.jpg</g:image_link> <g:quantity>5</g:quantity> <link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.uniquelyhorse.com/store/page2.html#1'/> <g:product_type><![CDATA[Horse Calming Supplement]]></g:product_type> <g:MPN><![CDATA[459-1]]></g:MPN> <g:Availability><![CDATA[In Stock]]></g:Availability> <g:payment_accepted>Visa</g:payment_accepted> <g:payment_accepted>MasterCard</g:payment_accepted> <g:payment_accepted>Discover</g:payment_accepted> <g:payment_accepted>American Express</g:payment_accepted> <g:payment_notes> PayPal </g:payment_notes> <g:condition>New</g:condition> <g:brand><![CDATA[Mare Magic]]></g:brand> <summary><![CDATA[Mare Magic is one of our best sellers. It's known to help influence a quiet disposition in mares and geldings.]]></summary> <g:currency>USD</g:currency> <g:item_type>products</g:item_type> </entry>

and got an error report back from google...


Uploaded on Feb 27, 2012 6:13 pm EST
No items inserted - Processed on Feb 27, 2012 8:28 pm EST
Destinations: Product Ads, Product Search, Search API for Shopping

I also got an error message that something else was missing...something about the biginning and ending of each field had to be the same?

[whitehorse]

OK, one thing at a time,
Why would I get an error message - no items inserted - when shopsite clearly set the id as such;
<g:id>PID#1</g:id>
?

This isn't something I set up, shopsite did it this way...

[whitehorse]

Can someone check out these google errors and maybe this will shine more lite on the error reports; (Still pertains to the ss feed noted above.)

http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160039

Thanks.

[Jim]

The message "no items inserted" is not talking about the content of your data feed, it is saying that Google didn't insert the item into your Google listed products.

There have been so many Google changes since ShopSite 10 (which is what you mentioned you have) that it may not be possible to create a feed that meets all of Google's requirements using that version of ShopSite. We have had to make several changes to ShopSite to add additional fields that Google now requires. The fields in ShopSite ten for google feeds were
Title
Description
Price
Image
Quantity
Weight
Product URL (Landing Page)
Attributes (optional)
Google Base
Brand
Product Type
Condition

In ShopSite 11sp1 there are
Title:
Description:
Price:
Image:
Additional Images:
Availability:
Free Shipping: List a product on Google as having free shipping if "No Shipping Charges" is checked for the product.
Weight:
Product URL (Landing Page):
Product Type (category):
Attributes (Optional)
Google Merchant Center:
Brand:
GTIN (ISBN or UPC):
MPN (Manufacturer Part Number):
Google Product Type:
Google Product Category:
Availability:
Condition
Age Group
Gender
Variant Options in Google Feed
List as Free Shipping on Google:

So there are almost twice as many fields available (some required) now as were required at the time that ShopSite 10 was released. Some such as the Variant Options in Google Feed would definitely not be possible to implement in 10.

I recommend that you go to http://shopsite.com/demo.html and signup for a version 11sp1 demo store. You can then download your products from your live store and upload them into the demo store. Configure the various options for your Google feed under Merchandising > Google Services > Product Search > Configure . Use bogus account info so the feed doesn't get actually sent to Google when you try to send the feed. Next, go to the Products screen and select a product and complete all the google fields in the section "Google Product Search/Merchant Center Feed ". Make sure only one of the products has the Google Merchant Center checkbox checked so when you generate a feed it is for just a single product. Then send the feed under Merchandising > Google Services > Product Search > Send Feed. Once the feed has been generated you can see what was generated by clicking on the date next to the Feed Last Submitted: on the Google Product Search/Merchant Center Feed screen. Then click on the Click here to view the original datafeed link at the top of the screen to see the code that ShopSite generated for the feed. Compare that information to what you are getting in your version 10 store and see what might be missing.

Note that the FTP feed and the API feeds are not interchangeable so make sure you are using the same type on your store and the demo store.

[whitehorse]

Thanks Jim for all your time on this..

I could do like you said, but, to what end, I still wouldn't be able to automatically up load anything from my version 10 store.

Unless..could I EASILY upload ALLl my products into the trail 11 store just to get them submitted to google?

[Jim]

It is easy to move the products from one store to another (Utilities > Database > Download > Products > Download and then Utilities > Database > Upload > Products > upload) but putting them in a different store would make the urls all incorrect so they won't actually work for the google feed.

The reason I suggested that is so you can check the output from the most recent version (that I know works) and see how you could modify your version 10 file so that it would work. It might take a bit of work to get it working but if you can't get your store updated to version 11sp1 that might be the way to get the feed to work.

Note that Google also has a "Text (Spreadsheet) or Tab Delimited" format option for uploading products to be indexed. I'm not familier with the format but you could probably download your products from ShopSite in a tab delimited file, open that file in Excel or another spreadsheet program, modify the field names to match Google's format, save the file as a tab delimited fle and then upload it to Google. See http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=160588 and http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=188494 They also have a YouTube video series about some of their more recent changes and what you need to be aware of. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC0OlAja3JU