Google base (Froogle) issue

[dlundell]

I received the following email from Google, saying that my feed has non-unique ID entries. I'm assuming that Shopsite is doing the right thing, but perhaps not? (I'm not sure)

My feed has unique entries for <batch:id>. The google base documentation talks about a <g:id> field, which is not in the Shopsite-generated feed.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

The email from them is included below.

Thanks,

- dc

Thank you for your participation in Google Base. We're reaching out
to inform you of an upcoming change regarding the Google Base
attribute, ID. IDs are unique alphanumeric identifiers used to
identify each offer in your data feed and are a required Google Base
attribute.

Our system will soon begin verifying that every item submitted to
Google Base includes this required attribute during processing.
Items submitted without ID attribute values will generate an error
and will not be processed by our system or appear in search results.

In a recent review of your Google Base content, we noticed at least
one of your offers doesn't include an ID value. If your feed already
includes the ID attribute, please also make sure every item in your
file includes a unique value for this attribute. If your file
doesn't include the ID attribute, you will need to add this
attribute to your feed and include a unique value for each item.

To avoid any delays in processing your items when this change
occurs, we'd like to ask that you promptly update your content to
include both the ID attribute and unique values for every item
you're submitting. Visit
http://base.google.com/support/bin/answ ... r=78170#id
for more information on the Google Base ID attribute.

Please feel free to visit our Help Center at
http://base.google.com/support if you have any questions.
Alternatively, you can visit
http://groups.google.com/group/base-help-discussion to reach out
to other Google Base providers for troubleshooting tips.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

[extragear]

Greetings:

We too received this email. I would assume that we'll have to add a field to our feed. Or is Shopsite going to add the needed field and create the unique id?

Thanks

[Jim]

We are keeping tabs on the issue but there is still nothing on Google's developer site that says anything about this supposed new requirement. They also do not provide direct access (or indirect for that matter) to their development team so there is no way that we can contact them to find out what is going on.

For Pro level stores you could use one of the custom fields to add your own tag.

[dlundell]

We are keeping tabs on the issue but there is still nothing on Google's developer site that says anything about this supposed new requirement. They also do not provide direct access (or indirect for that matter) to their development team so there is no way that we can contact them to find out what is going on.

For Pro level stores you could use one of the custom fields to add your own tag.

If we did that, can you think of a clever way to make it automatically unique?

Thanks,

- dc

[ryan@ddm]

Ask Shopsite if there is a way to access the product UUID's they create when using a sister store - the Universally Unique IDs.

[Jim]

No there is no way to access that field.

In fact it does not exist in most stores' database, only those which are using the "sync" module (sold separately) and have enabled the feature would have it. But even then the field would not be available.

[ryan@ddm]

I suspected as much - but it was worth a try Please let us know if you hear anything further from Google on this issue.

[FlaGatorMan]

What is Shopsite doing to fix this issue with Google/Froogle feed. This is an important part of getting traffic to our site. We are getting this error..

You must enter an item title. Title is a required attribute. - help

27
We didn't understand this attribute. Please use a valid attribute name. - help

title: product

31
This is not one of the accepted data types for custom attributes. - help

title: product 2

31
We didn't understand this attribute. Please use a valid attribute name. - help

item type:products

44

[Jim]

A patch will be released shortly that will fix all known issues with the Google Product search functionality in ShopSite. It will only be available for ShopSite 9.0.3.x versions. So if your store is not currently at that level you will need to have it upgraded to that version and then have the patches applied.

You can find out about the release by signing up for the Tech bulletin at http://shopsite.com/subscribe.html

[loren_d_c]

The following patch for ShopSite v9.0.3x that should resolve the Google Base feed issues was announced through the ShopSite Tech Bulletin email list yesterday:

http://support.shopsite.com/kbase/view_answer.php?questionID=S5528

If you would like to receive the email notifications of new ShopSite versions, maintenance releases, and patches, you can sign up for the email list, as Jim mentioned, following the instructions here:

http://www.shopsite.com/subscribe.html

-Loren