Google Base Feed - Has Anyone Used This?

[DonAshby]

Hi everyone,
We would like to do the Google Base Feed on Monday. We have quite a few products in the list and were able to Create the Feed, Compress it but when we tried to Upload it , we get this error:
**
GoogleBase Feed
Specify GoogleBase Feed Configuration Options Below.

FAILED
An Error has occured while uploading.
The requested name is valid, but no data of the requested type was found
**

We got SUCCESS on the first 2 steps. Does anyone know how to do this or what we are doing wrong? Has anyone tried the other 2 feeds Yahoo and Shopping - that's next.

Thanks, Don

[AbleMods]

Don,

I just set mine up a week ago.

Once I gave it the ftp username and password, it took almost a day before I could actually upload. Google was slow to get the ftp account activated on their end.

Once Google activated my ftp account, it has been working fine. My ftp site is set to uploads.google.com and I'm using the username and password supplied by google when I set up the feed.

I haven't tried Yahoo yet. Shopping.com isn't accepting new accounts until after the 1st of the year as of a week ago.

[DonAshby]

HI Joe,
Thanks for the info ... we will give it another try tomorrow on Monday. FYI we are getting PayPal Credit Card orders - credit cards seem ok but look forward to Logan's fix for the PayPal Express as soon as it is available. We cannot do PayPal Express nor Google Checkout now.

A Google Base Feed will help us as we did have a tricky time trying to move the site over from one DNS to another. The 301 redirects worked but for the 1 day we had it redirected to our sister site, Google decided to index us. But the Feed should fix that.

Thanks again, Don

[AbleMods]

Sounds good. My PayPal credit card processing has worked right from the start.

Out of curiosity, what's the advantage you see in having PayPal Express, Google Checkout and regular credit card authorization? I only set up one because I figured that would cover the basics - I'm rather new to the E-Commerce world.

On a side note, I'm *very* concerned about that IPN url that isn't right. I don't even have that file on my site, with either the right or wrong extension.

Do you?

[jmestep]

From what I've seen, Paypal express gives a faster checkout than normal Paypal, but customer has to use the shipping address in their Paypal account.
Google checkout gives you more options and on Google search page, it shows who has Google checkout. For example, if you search Google for spyder paintball guns, at the top under top search results, there is a link to sites that use Google checkout. If any of the sites that were in Product Search Results had Google checkout it would show there. I don't know if Google is supposed to be impartial concerning search results, but if I were trying to promote something myself, I would give exposure to whoever was using it.

[AbleMods]

Ohhh so "Google Checkout" is just another way to pay for something, like a PayPal account?

I thought it was some sort of google-based store you had to maintain.

[DonAshby]

Actually I mixed up 2 Google things into 1 post - just for conversation.

These is Google Feed where you send them your product information and they index it and put it in search... that is what we were discussing first. This is what you said you got to work ok.

Then I added in information about Google Checkout ... which is like PayPal only free to us and run by Google... People can sign up with Google and avoid the need to fill out customer forms when they buy from us. I am working to get that implemented too. We tried last week but couldnt get it to work ... but will try again.

Don

[AbleMods]

Ahhhh - cool. Didn't know that.

I'll see if I can get my site setup for google checkout and see how it works for me.

I have no fear

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello,

If you run a lot of google adwords like we do, it sure is nice to have google checkout enabled. Because they put the google checkout icon next to your ad and it makes it stand out from the crowd.

[DonAshby]

Unfortunately, we have tried everything we can think of including bringing in outside help, and we just can't get Google Checkout to work. Google does not like our call back url and we have tried it in every format we can think of trying including /ac7, /gis, and no /gis. Google just doesnt like it. We need to know if the /gis is okay to use or if we must have /as7 or if it is something else.

It seems to us that there is a problem with the program - Has anyone actually gotten this to work and seen tax and shipping rates be properly sent back to Google. We can see the orders in Google but it does not communicate with AC 7 and says NO TAX and Default Shipping - no matter what the chart should say. So to keep from losing money, we disabled our Expedited Shipping as we feel it is more important to offer Google Checkout than not.

This was an important feature for us in our decision process and we assumed it would be okay since it works in AC 5.5 - can anyone help on this so that we can use it for the Holidays?

Thanks, Don

[DonAshby]

Here is the Log file of the error for when we try to send up a Google Feed
************************************************************

DEBUG 2007-12-04 13:13:41,586 90089988ms Object a - Ftp error
System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: The requested name is valid, but no data of the requested type was found
at System.Net.Dns.InternalGetHostByName(String hostName, Boolean includeIPv6)
at System.Net.Dns.Resolve(String hostName)
at EnterpriseDT.Net.HostNameResolver.GetAddress(String hostName)
at EnterpriseDT.Net.Ftp.FTPClient.Connect ()
at CommerceBuilder.DataFeeds.FeedProviderBase.a(FeedOptions A_0, String A_1, String A_2, FTPTransferType A_3)
at CommerceBuilder.DataFeeds.FeedProviderBase.UploadUncompressedFeed(FeedOptions options, List`1& messages)

[AbleMods]

Ok Don you're confusing me.

Your next to the last post was talking about Google Checkout.

But your last post is about an error log entry regarding your Google Feed.

Which are you referring to with the error, Google Checkout or Google Feed?

[DonAshby]

Sorry about that:

This Log File is for Google Feed - I put it here as it it the title of the thread - but I know I have been mixing the info up. We really posted this for AC as they ask us to post logs if we are having trouble. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get anything with Google to work.

I dont know the format - should I start a new thread or just keep adding info.

Don

[AbleMods]

No problem, I just wanted to make sure.

Typically a forum like this will have a different topic thread for each issue. So in our case, since we're both having trouble with google feed, that would be this thread.

For the issue with google checkout, a different topic would be a good idea so everyone, especially Able, can see there is a different problem with a different part of the software.

I think Able is working on both issues and the paypal problems, but I'm not sure. There's been so many different things covered in the last week, my brain is getting scrambled

[satori]

Hi Don, I'm getting the exact same error as you did. Did you get this resolved?

I'd been using Google feeds with 2 other shopping carts no problem. And I've waited a month for Google to get my FTP info accepted.

[rdevarona]

Hi guys,

Our Google Base feed worked right off the bat on AC7 RC2. I didn't bother with the FTP account, though. We have approx 1500 products and the standard feed upload option worked fine. Once uploaded, it took Google a day to get it "Published and Searchable."

Regards,

rdv

[satori]

Yeah, the automatic FTP from the cart doesn't work for me. Almost every single one of my products has at least two options, is that why?

But last night I manually uploaded the feeds to all 3 feeds - Google, Yahoo and Shopping.com just fine. They're all there, just need to wait for them to be activated like previous poster said.

[AbleMods]

You can see the file that AC7 makes to be uploaded. Pull it up in Excel and take a look at it.

~/Admin/Marketing/Feeds/Data

[satori]

Yep, that's what I uploaded last night.

[DonAshby]

Hi RDV,

You said that the Google Base Feed worked right off the bat for you. Did you upload from AC 7 or did you get the file off the AC 7 database, put it into Excel and then upload it ( thats our work around and it works ok). But is that how to do it with the others Yahoo and Shopping?

Also, have you looked at what gets taken out of AC when you do the Feed? We found that it is NOT the description but the Summary Field. So we cut and pasted in the first line of our description into the Summary field 1800 times and got the feed to work - the Summary Field is the Short Description in Google Shopping - Froogle.

When we did it in DEC, we did not have anything inside the Summary Field so the Google Feed did not get accepted. I wonder if there is any way to tweak what AC gives us? That would be important going forward. And I hope they will fix the communication issues so that the FTP works directly from the AC 7 Dashboard.

Finally, RDV - can you tell us your URL so I can look at it in Google Shopping.

Thanks, Don


*********
From RDV:

Our Google Base feed worked right off the bat on AC7 RC2. I didn't bother with the FTP account, though. We have approx 1500 products and the standard feed upload option worked fine. Once uploaded, it took Google a day to get it "Published and Searchable."

Regards, rdv
**********

[AbleMods]

Don,

I could give you a SQL script that would update all your Summary field values in one command before you dump it out of AC7. From then on, you could just FTP the file straight up to Google.

[DonAshby]

Hi Joe,

That would be great! Have you more or less worked this out for all the Shopping SIte? Do you use anything more than Google Base, Yahoo, and Shopping? We are successfully creating the Feed by the Dashboard and then reaching into the SQL Database to get it, putting it into Excel, and then uploading to Google Base... but that's it so far. Just have Summary ( Short Description ), Title and Price and Image - thats it.

Don

[AbleMods]

How about I just post an article on modifying the google feed code to do the command automatically every time you run the feed menu option?

It's important to note that anything in your product summary fields will always get overwritten. I could make it so it only updates empty summary fields, but then it wouldn't catch situations where you've updated a product description.

I've successfully used Google Feed and Shopping.com Feed without modification (except the summary issue for Google discussed above).
My AC7 uploads work intermittently - sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. In every case AC7 said it was successful with the upload but it's not accurate.

Shopping.com worked flawlessly the first try.

I can tell when Google worked because I'll get an email shortly afterwards that the file was received. Shopping.com doesn't do that so far as I can tell.

I am working on a Shopzilla.com export now, that will be a mod I sell if I can get it to work properly. Shopzilla.com is different in that they don't allow HTML in product descriptions, so I can't just re-use a Google or Shopping.com feed file.

[rdevarona]

Sorry, should have been more specific...

You said that the Google Base Feed worked right off the bat for you. Did you upload from AC 7 or did you get the file off the AC 7 database, put it into Excel and then upload it ( thats our work around and it works ok). But is that how to do it with the others Yahoo and Shopping?

I used AC to create the feed file. AC puts this file in \Admin\Marketing\Feeds\Data. I logged in via FTP (to my site) and downloaded this file onto my PC. I did open it in Excel to take a look around, but I don't think I modified anything. I then uploaded the feed file to Google Base via their manual data feed upload option.

Also, have you looked at what gets taken out of AC when you do the Feed? We found that it is NOT the description but the Summary Field. So we cut and pasted in the first line of our description into the Summary field 1800 times and got the feed to work - the Summary Field is the Short Description in Google Shopping - Froogle.

I did notice that there are not a whole lot of columns that get added to the feed file. Google actually recommends a whole bunch more than what is included in AC's version.

Finally, RDV - can you tell us your URL so I can look at it in Google Shopping.

Sure. Our site url is http://www.electricalmarketplace.com. You can see all of the products in Google Base at this link: http://base.google.com/base/search?authorid=3425094.

Regards,

rdv

[herchenx]

I am trying to assist my client in marketing their store as much as possible. They found the feeds items and asked me to help them set these up.

I think I figured out Google Base. I set everything up and am waiting for the FTP to become accessible.

I have no clue on how to get started with Yahoo. I see that in Yahoo I can pay to set up a store - is this how to create an account to upload data to?

Anyone have any pointers for where to start with Yahoo (and Shopping.com for that matter)?

Thanks,

John