Need help with New Google Merchant Feeder

[wonderbread101]

I am on ZC 1.3.9h and have just installed the new google merchant feeder. How do I get ZC to add the Google Product Category fields and Product availability?

[schoolboy]

Product availability will automatically show if you have items in stock.

Google Product Catetory... You must use EXACTLY the taxonomy that Google tells you to, and there is a LINK in the module for that setting, to Google's taxonomy chart.

Bear in mind that the taxomomy required is the FULL GOOGLE CATEGORY PATH... not just the final name.

I am not sure what you sell, but it could be BREAD ???

This is the full XML path for that Google category

Food, Beverages & Tobacco > Food Items > Bakery > Breads & Buns

[wonderbread101]

Thanks for the reply.

We don't sell bread LOL

Are you saying that I need to create categories in ZC to match google taxonomy?

[schoolboy]

No... your categories can be whatever you like.

What Google wants to do is index your listings in an appropriate GOOGLE category.

It is very sticky about this, and you need to choose an appropriate category.

THIS LINK will guide you...

[wonderbread101]

That I get. But where in zc do I set that attribute? That's the part I can't figure out.

[wonderbread101]

Der.... I figured that part out.

However, now only 193 products show up in the feed. Prior to the GM upgrade, there were over 1100 products in the feed. Is this a bug?

[schoolboy]

In your admin panel, under CONFIGURATION, you should have Google Merchant Centre Configuration showing in the dropdown.

You open that admin area, and you will see a host of options that need proper configuration. Do not miss ones you need, and do not use parameters that do not tally with Merchant Center's requirements (such as the Google Category).

BEFORE you generate the feed file (done from the Goggle Feed option under the TOOLS menu), you MUST get all your configuration settings correct.

The feed expiry, set as 29 days, we usually re-set to 28, meaning that there are four exact weeks between feeds. You cannot go beyond 30 days...

But this is a DUAL ACTIVITY... on the GOOGLE side you also need to get things properly configured - such as FTP username and password, which you then put into your zencart system...

Your very first feed should be a TEST FEED, so you can look at any errors Google throws back at you, and you can then re-tweak your zencart configuration settings to address those errors.

It can be a frustrating exercise, but once you have it right, its a breeze sending the feeds to Google.

[schoolboy]

Der.... I figured that part out.

However, now only 193 products show up in the feed. Prior to the GM upgrade, there were over 1100 products in the feed. Is this a bug?

It is a bug... yes... somewhere in your PRODUCT DATA... not on Google.

The "rules" have been significantly tightened by Google. IF 193 products were loaded, then Google "choked" on the 194th and stopped loading.

Look at google's error report, and then see what its error report is saying that might apply to the 194th item in the XML file.

we recently had a client whose feed choked on SCORES of products. As we fixed one and re-sent the feed, it would load up, then choke on another... Our problem in this instance was badly formatted special characters in product descriptions; eg using the little TM symbol instead of its HTML Character Code counterpart...

[heteromorphic]

Can anyone assist me please. This worked fine when I uploaded it about a week ago but then I realized that my default category was in text and not xml so I updated it and then tried to upload again and keep getting the error now that says;

Google Merchant Center Feeder v started 2012/12/28 14:04:56

Feed file - /hsphere/local/home/heteromo/heteromorphic.com/zencart/feed/google/domain_products_en.xml

Processing: Feed - No, Upload - Yes

Upload started...
Upload Failed
Connected to: uploads.google.comLogin ok:Current Directory Is: /

Upload failed...

I switched back to text to see if that change made it not work and still got the error so I'm not sure what went wrong?

Any help greatly appreciated!
heteromorphic.com