Google Base Feeder Support Thread [OLD]

nehoward64:

OK wise ones.... :smile: My suspicions were correct. After several hours of pouring through code books I haven't dealt with in about 15 years, and reading through several hundred messages in this forum, I have discovered that the '&' is the problem in the <link> line of the file. After changing all occurrences of it to '&' with notepad++ and manually uploading it, google liked my file and listed all of the products.

The question is, does anyone know how to either make the base feeder do this automatically when the file is generated, OR, some automatic way of doing this so the base feeder will FTP the file without me having to manually change all the ampersands and manually uploading the file? Although I used to write communications software for UNIX 20 years ago, I'm a bit out of touch and haven't dug into the code(or had the time to) to figure this out.

Any input would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance(only because I know some smart person probably already has the answer :D )

Can't help you .. but I did go through my file and did a find/replace.

Bottom line, that was not my problem. I re-did the feed and got a mis-match error
Line 14 col 69

The offender is product_id**=**1878

So Google does not like an equal sign?

What next? I'm lost.

xcergy:

Can't help you .. but I did go through my file and did a find/replace.

Bottom line, that was not my problem. I re-did the feed and got a mis-match error
Line 14 col 69

<link>http://xcergy.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=187&language=en&currency=USD</link>

The offender is product_id**=**1878

So Google does not like an equal sign?

What next? I'm lost.

Google liked the equal signs in my file, in my case it was the ampersand(&)...

Did you change them all?

main_page=product_info&products_id=187&language=en&currency=USD

Also, you may want to try changing the (encoding="UTF-8") to (encoding="UTF-16") at the very top of the file. I had also done this per the suggestion of a previous message in this feed but am not sure what the significance is.

I'm thinking that if google didnt like the equal sign it would have choked at the (main_page=product_info) instead of at the product number. I dunno, but following these changes mine worked fine. Maybe someone else has a better explanation???

nehoward64:

Google liked the equal signs in my file, in my case it was the ampersand(&)...

Did you change them all?

main_page=product_info&products_id=187&language=en&currency=USD

Also, you may want to try changing the (encoding="UTF-8") to (encoding="UTF-16") at the very top of the file. I had also done this per the suggestion of a previous message in this feed but am not sure what the significance is.

I'm thinking that if google didnt like the equal sign it would have choked at the (main_page=product_info) instead of at the product number. I dunno, but following these changes mine worked fine. Maybe someone else has a better explanation???

The error code (line 14 col 69) points directly to the '=' sign

Yes, I tried the '&' and also re-verified xcergy.com as opposed to https://www.xcergy.com on the Google webmaster page.

The error remains the same.

Where in Google does it state that UTF-16 is required?

nehoward64:

Also, you may want to try changing the (encoding="UTF-8") to (encoding="UTF-16") at the very top of the file. I had also done this per the suggestion of a previous message in this feed but am not sure what the significance is.

Maybe someone else has a better explanation???
It all depends on what charter coding you use when creating your products. If you do your product description in word then copy/paste, or type within your cart, or use a csv file from a vendor.... you may end up with maxed set of charter codes... Like this " is not the same as ˝ which converts to something like this  when creating the feed.

Not so sure it's a Google thing as a XML, RSS2 strict coding requirement, but you can ether go through all your type and make sure it's all in one charter coding, and charters such as & " , >< if used in a description or title, their HTML coding is used. ex.. & for &, such coding when read out-of-place will cause errors in a reader.

Or play with the google_base_xml_sanitizer in \includes\classes\google_base.php and try some of the changes discussed in this thread. I did.... still not having any problems with Google and my feed looks good in a reader. I restricted to 20 products as I edited the class file until it look good in my rss reader, then I uploaded the short feed to Google and it passed, then the full feed. I have over 5000 products listed without any errors from Google.

Lots of good info on the net for sanitizing XML.

davewest:

It all depends on what charter coding you use when creating your products. If you do your product description in word then copy/paste, or type within your cart, or use a csv file from a vendor.... you may end up with maxed set of charter codes... Like this " is not the same as ˝ which converts to something like this  when creating the feed.

Not so sure it's a Google thing as a XML, RSS2 strict coding requirement, but you can ether go through all your type and make sure it's all in one charter coding, and charters such as & " , >< if used in a description or title, their HTML coding is used. ex.. & for &, such coding when read out-of-place will cause errors in a reader.

Or play with the google_base_xml_sanitizer in \includes\classes\google_base.php and try some of the changes discussed in this thread. I did.... still not having any problems with Google and my feed looks good in a reader. I restricted to 20 products as I edited the class file until it look good in my rss reader, then I uploaded the short feed to Google and it passed, then the full feed. I have over 5000 products listed without any errors from Google.

Lots of good info on the net for sanitizing XML.

Food for thought. Thanks for posting. I copy/paste HTML code from Front Page, or type it in the cart.
That said, my errors are all in the link tag, and that code is generated totally by Zen.

Nice information.Thanks a lot for sharing such a wonderful and useful information...

director search

Numinix now has an updated version 1.8.2

I uploaded that to my cart, yet still have the problem of '&' characters in the link tags.

At least I was able to find/replace these instances using php editor and manually upload to google (YEA!!!)

But this does not solve the problem when the feed is generated.

If the sanitizer is the problem, what code should I change?

Does this work with ceon url mapping?

Thanks.

chal2les:

Does this work with ceon url mapping?

Thanks.I have only found one add-on that does not work with Ceon URI. (and that's because this particular mod is poorly written IMHO) The point is Conor goes through a lot of work to ensure his module does NOT interfere with other modules.. (which included this one)

xcergy:

Numinix now has an updated version 1.8.2

I uploaded that to my cart, yet still have the problem of '&' characters in the link tags.

At least I was able to find/replace these instances using php editor and manually upload to google (YEA!!!)

But this does not solve the problem when the feed is generated.

If the sanitizer is the problem, what code should I change?

Sometimes you have to read back, or do a search in the thread to find out what other people have done to solve the problem. Look at this post and see if it will help you.
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=831949&postcount=2038

Hey gang,

I have finally completely frazzled myself over this one. The sanitizer function in /includes/classes/google_base.php.... I have played with this for hours and even went back through this thread trying various examples. I am still unable to get rid of the '&' in the product link and replace it with '&'... Has anyone else been able to get this to work and if so, how?

It appears that this..... $str = str_replace("&", "&", $str);
doesnt work no matter what I do with it and no matter where I insert it. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

Hi I am having problems with my feed and have had a look through the forum but its so mahoosive i can't find the answer.
I had numinix install the feeder and it only uploads 53 out of 54 products although i have 189 products on my site. Any ideas?

using zc v1.3.8 with a few addons.
many thanks. kev

For those that are getting the following error:

/googlefroogle.php?feed=fy_un_tp link is broken...

Make sure that the googlefroogle.php file that was included with the add-on package is uploaded into your main store directory.

Becuase the installation files say to avoid uploading the googlefroogle.sql file, it can be very easy to overlook the googlefroogle.php file in that same folder.

Hope that helps!

basecampone:

Hi I am having problems with my feed and have had a look through the forum but its so mahoosive i can't find the answer.
I had numinix install the feeder and it only uploads 53 out of 54 products although i have 189 products on my site. Any ideas?

using zc v1.3.8 with a few addons.
many thanks. kev

If you log into the google analytics website and look at the data quality information, it will tell you why which items were not imported. It could be as simple as a missing manufacturer tag, no price(call for price), short product description, etc. I finally got mine working, after realizing that a new version was released the day after I started playing with it and I never knew it! lol The only thing I had to do was edit the googlefroogle.php file and change the information on line 111 to say encoding="UTF-16" for whatever reason. But as for items not being included, check the above information out, any of those will cause items to be 'skipped' or ignored.

I am suddenly having a new problem with this mod. I am still unable to upload it to Google using FTP, it says Login failed, Upload failed. However, I was able to upload manually with no issues. Now suddenly when I try to upload manually, it says 0 of 1 items were inserted and it says there was an XML formatting error. Nothing has changed and I even tried uploading just one category of products and it still gives the same error. Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thanks!

I am having similar issues:

1. Google Froogle is only creating 3 products in the XML file

2. when uploading via ZenCart, it gives the "upload failed" message

3. If uploading manually, Google says 3 of 3 was successful, but when looking at the active products, nothing is there.

I think the issues are with Google..... I just tried mine and the datafile was created correctly and quickly, but when I tried to upload via ftp it took several attempts to connect with google. Looking at their FAQ section in the Merchant Center it appears they are having a problem with the Dashboard showing zero active products but when you look at your active products you can see them all. They also mention a change to some users in the FTP parameters and list instructions on how to reset your FTP information. I'm not sure if that is the nature of the problems you're experiencing but I would check anyhow just to make sure.

Also, Numinix recently released version 182 which corrects the "&" in the link which was causing Google to reject the feed. Double check your version and make sure you have the recent update.

Mine appears to be working but the Dashboard in the Merchant Center is displaying incorrect and inconsistant information.

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but how would I do step 6 in the instructions?

6. Register your bulk upload .xml file using the same name in your Google Base Configuration at base.google.com

idle:

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but how would I do step 6 in the instructions?

6. Register your bulk upload .xml file using the same name in your Google Base Configuration at base.google.com

You go to www.google.com/merchants/bulkuploads and select the 'data feeds' option on the left side of the screen, then choose the 'new feed' button and enter the name and other information for your feed. This assumes of course that you already have an account with google merchant services and your domain and such are claimed.

Thanks for your quick reply Howard, I am guessing the .xml file i am using is from my main directory/feeds/ folder? Which in my case is domain_products.xml