Bing Shopping Export Mod

I don’t know if most of yall know but Bing Shopping is now free. After finally getting my account established I was surprised at how even more picky they are with data feeds than Google. So I went ahead and created this mod to try and meet Bings expectations as much as possible. All that the mod consists of is 2 files added and about 10 database queries. Attached are the files, database queries, and a couple of screen shots.



Some of you may ask “Why not just use the data feed addon?” The answer is because the data feed addon is too basic meaning it will add all of your products whether they are active or disabled and it also leaves your html code intact which Google does not like to a certain extent and Bing has no toleration for it at all.



Add the bing.php to /schemas/exim/ and the bing.post.php to /addons/seo/schemas/exim/. Doing this much will at least let you create the file so that you can download it (with the failed FTP export errors of course).



The database queries are so you can set the setting so that it will automatically send it to Bing. Actually at this point your data feed will not be accepted because it has to be in Windows format instead of Unix, so this still needs work.



Later I will explain some things that I altered in the file that you may also want to use in the Google base file…like getting rid of the quotes that I see in JLS’s ads in Google Base.



Donations are appreciated but not necessary via PayPal to:

TexasTrophy@gmail.com
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I will also install this for a small fee.<br />
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Edit:  I always forget the language variables.  You will also need to add:  Variable - bing_shopping, Value - Bing shopping<br />
<br />
Edit2:  I have updated the attached file to include 2.1.1.  Note:  You do not need the bing.post.php for 2.1.1.<p><a href="127.0.0.1/uploads/monthly_06_2011/post-775-13081579773211.ipb">Bing Shopping.zip</a></p>

Okay, below is the line of code you can use to change html special characters to what you want. This can be used in the google.php file as well. Some of the characters will need to be replaced with a blank (‘’) like ™ because if you try to type ™ in the code, it will automatically change to the alt number (#xxx). Google does accept some html but not all and Bing does not accept any html whatsoever. This line is about 245 in the bing.php file I attached above and all you need to do is make sure that the character in the first array is in the same order as the following array. I color coded some so you can get the idea.

} else {
return strip_tags(str_replace(array([COLOR="DarkOrange"]'
'[/COLOR], [COLOR="Blue"]'
'[/COLOR], [COLOR="Red"]'
'[/COLOR], [COLOR="Lime"]'
'[/COLOR], '"', '“', '”', '–', '&', ' ', '’', '¼', '½', '¾', '<', '>', '…', '‘', '•', 'mdash;', '±', '""'), array([COLOR="DarkOrange"]' '[/COLOR], [COLOR="Blue"]' '[/COLOR], [COLOR="Red"]' '[/COLOR], [COLOR="Lime"]' '[/COLOR], '"', '"', '"', '-', '&', ' ', "'", '1/4', '1/2', '3/4', '<', '>', '...', "'", '-', '-', '+/-', '"'), $data));
//return strip_tags(str_replace( array('
','
', '
', '
'), " ", $data));
}

I’ll tell you what guys and gals, you need to jump on this Bing Shopping. My account was approved on the 23rd and I am now seeing just as many, if not more, hits from Bing than Google and I have never been able to get Bing to even index more than 100 pages.





Okay, back to the topic at hand. If you have gotten this far then you are 75% there. Next you will need to select your options and rename the export file from .csv to .txt and select “Export”.



After it exports you will see the ftp errors, just ignore them and select “exported files” and download the file you just created.



Open the file in Notepad++. Note: You cannot use Excel because it adds the quotes around lines with special characters.



At this point most of the html should be removed but you need to check and make sure. Don’t worry if you miss any because Ying Yang at Bing will tell you what is wrong with the file. Note: If there are an special characters that were missed, you need to write them down and add them to the line that I spoke of in post 2.



Now we need to convert the file to Windows format so do Edit->EOL Conversion->Windows Format then save the file as bingshopping.txt.



All you need to do now is upload it to Bing.

Great post!



My Bing shopping feed just got approved yesterday. Thanks for this mod! I’ll install it and provide my feedback.

btw, do you know of any other free feeds websites that can help improve SEO rankings or help get more traffic besides Google and Bing??

[quote name=‘gugga7’]btw, do you know of any other free feeds websites that can help improve SEO rankings or help get more traffic besides Google and Bing??[/QUOTE]



Not that I know of. Only thing I can think of is thefind and shopwiki but you don’t submit a datafeed. You just create an account to let them know who you are and they do the rest.

Thanks. I hope to have time to check this out next week.

Thanks… Once my account is approved I’ll be sure to try this out

I Must be blind cos I haves serached and registered but dont see how I update my products, can anyone give me a pointer please.



thanks

JOhn

[quote name=‘johnbol1’]I Must be blind cos I haves serached and registered but dont see how I update my products, can anyone give me a pointer please.



thanks

JOhn[/QUOTE]



Same way you submitted your products in the first place.

[quote name=‘The Tool’]Same way you submitted your products in the first place.[/QUOTE]



I havent yet thats what I want to do.



John

What’s the url for bing shopping, all I can find is ciao and something else that wants me to pay to be part of it

[url]http://advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/bing-shopping[/url]

[quote name=‘The Tool’]Same way you submitted your products in the first place.[/QUOTE]



Doesnt work in UK,



Just for US

The Tool,



Hello, I downloaded your gift of the free feed, however I’ve encountered an error. I’ve double checked the steps, any idea what would cause this:



Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /nfs/c02/h07/mnt/38876/domains/scubagoo.com/html/controllers/admin/exim.php on line 1017



And… i get a red ajax box with:



Invalid pattern definition: alternative key is missing



Any quick fix?



I’ll gladly donate if we can get it to work.



Robert

Ok folks, apparently there are a few things that have changed since 2.0.15. I am assuming scubagoo is using a newer version so I will need to make some changes for the newer version.



I will need someone to test it though since I am not using the latest version yet.

Okay, here is the bing.php for 2.1.1. Someone please test it.



It also appears that they have removed the SEF links from google base. Can someone who is using 2.1.1 confirm whether the product urls are SEF or not?

[quote name=‘The Tool’]Okay, here is the bing.php for 2.1.1. Someone please test it.



It also appears that they have removed the SEF links from google base. Can someone who is using 2.1.1 confirm whether the product urls are SEF or not?[/QUOTE]



Yes I’m using 2.1.1 or so. and I haven’t been able to get google base to work in 2.1.1, the feed is rejected.



Robert

[quote name=‘The Tool’]Okay, here is the bing.php for 2.1.1. Someone please test it.



It also appears that they have removed the SEF links from google base. Can someone who is using 2.1.1 confirm whether the product urls are SEF or not?[/QUOTE]



Yes I’m using 2.1.1 or so. and I haven’t been able to get google base to work in 2.1.1, the feed is rejected.



Now its giving me





Warning: array_push() [function.array-push]: First argument should be an array in /nfs/c02/h07/mnt/38876/domains/scubagoo.com/html/addons/seo/schemas/exim/bing.post.php on line 28



Warning: array_push() [function.array-push]: First argument should be an array in /nfs/c02/h07/mnt/38876/domains/scubagoo.com/html/addons/seo/schemas/exim/bing.post.php on line 29



when I click on export files.





Robert

The 2.1.1 version exported fine for me but I haven’t tested the SEO URL’s yet - Sno