Google Base Feeder Support Thread

[RescoCCC]

Did anybody notice the change in language in merchant center?

We have gradually begun enforcing the Google Product Search data feed changes from Sept. 22, 2011.

I have a hunch that enough big companies whined that Google decided to move more slowly.

[bluetooth]

The simple solution is to log in to your Google merchant center account and create a new data feed with a name that matches the file being generated.

I understand that, but when I run the Google Base Feeder, I get "Google Merchant Center File Complete In 67.974554 Seconds 0 of 2470 Records"

[bluetooth]

This is all I am getting in the domain_products_en.xml file, the link info is also incorrect, I have it set to a different http file, but it still says domain.com:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0">
<channel>
<title>Floors</title>
<link>http://www.domain.com</link>
<description></description>
</channel>
</rss>

[RescoCCC]

I understand that, but when I run the Google Base Feeder, I get "Google Merchant Center File Complete In 67.974554 Seconds 0 of 2470 Records"

Is your feed folder set to 777?

[bluetooth]

Feed folder is set to 777.

Is there anything I could check in my database?

I noticed I have 2 configuration_group entries in the database. One that says Google Base Feeder Configuration, and one that says Google Merchant Center Feeder Configuration. Is that correct?

[bluetooth]

I uninstalled both sql entries. Then I ran install.sql, which added back the Google Merchant Center Feeder Configuration.

Now I can't configure because I have no tab under configuration in zen cart for Google Merchant Center.

Thanks in advance.

[bluetooth]

I changed the name of the configuration_group_title from Google Merchant Center Feeder Configuration to Google Base Feeder Configuration.

Now it's working, I re-configured and all but 6 of the 2470 records were sent to my floors_products_en.xml file. Got 5 warnings when uploaded to Google stating missing recommended attributes. I don't know if this is a problem, but I think it's OK. Any inputs on that?

Thanks!

[Andy Dean]

Found another reason why some products not exported to XML file.

For some time I have been unable to get all of my products included in the XML file. I realise that there are a large number of factors influencing this and I think I have taken all of them into account.

The only way I have found to get one of my new products included is to temporarily reduce its product name to a maximum of 28 characters and edit the exported XML back to the original name length.

The problem is it seems to be only relevant to that one product. i.e. renaming an existing product with a shorter name to >28 char still works. Can't figure it out. One thing that seemed to make a difference initially was how the new product was generated - creating a new one or copying an exisitng one. Can't seem to replicate this though. Additionally the missing product didn't appear in the debug file at all.

Anyway, I would be interested to hear if anyone else has resolved the XML inclusion problem in the same way. In the meantime I'll try to replicate the problem more thoroughly on my local copy.

Cheers for that Simon! I started encountering this problem when i upgraded from 1.8.2 to 1.10.3 and shortening the title to less than 28 char fixes it!

Here's the killer though...



The two products in question have the same title but different MPN's, id no 8 gets included in the XML regardless while id no.9 only gets included if i shorten it's title to less than 28 char

I suspect that as the two products are very similar, id9 may have been copied from id8.

When i upgraded from 1.8.2 to 1.10.3 i converted the db to utf-8 following the instructions provided, i wonder if it has anything to do with that. The product descriptions also struggle with copyright and trademark symbols now too, i have to switch to source <> and replace them with the character entities to avoid encoding errors when i upload the feed.

[thomaswhiteeagle]

You may be confusing the attribute Product Type with Google Product Category. Leave Default Product Type empty, set Product Type to "top", and fill in Default Product Category with the correct entry from the Google Taxonomy.

Except there is no "default product category". I applied the update, even uninstalled the script and reinstalled it from scratch. The default product category shows to be in the database but not in the front end configuration.

[schoolboy]

Well... this is a first for me! Did a test submission of one of my clients' xml feeds into GoogleBase...

... and got NO WARNINGS!