Google Base

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Thanks!

I’ve read stories on the forum with people not getting it to work properly which is why i haven’t bothered yet. But i’d like to.

Yeah I started using it yesterday and I can’t seem to automatically upload the file, but it is something I would really like to have

Thanks,

Totally essential! Without it, my stores would drop off the face of the known world…

[quote name=‘David’]Totally essential! Without it, my stores would drop off the face of the known world…[/QUOTE]



David, can you give us an example of what Google Base looks like for an item of yours?

Sure - here’s the entire store listed in G base for the pet store in my sig

[quote name=‘David’]Sure - here’s the entire store listed in G base for the pet store in my sig[/QUOTE]



Oh that’s pretty neat isn’t it?! And that’s generated by CS-Cart at the moment?

[quote name=‘argentice’]Oh that’s pretty neat isn’t it?! And that’s generated by CS-Cart at the moment?[/QUOTE]

Totally. It’s a bit of a struggle to get Google base accounts properly set up but once done, bingo. I reload every time there is a significant change in the store.

[quote name=‘David’]Totally. It’s a bit of a struggle to get Google base accounts properly set up.[/QUOTE]



Can you share your struggle… so that all the members get it working.



TIA.

A Google Base account is the first step. Then register a bulk upload file name on that account. That filename is then used in the admin under Google/Froogle settings/Google filename enter the filename you have just setup.



Next, you register for an FTP account on your Google base account. The username and password you supply there goes into Google login and Google password in the cart admin.



Next; you wait. Give it at least an hour for the FTP account to kick in.



Almost there; back to admin, select Export catalogue, and click the final option on the screen Export to Google base. Watch the cart do its thing & see what the result is. If it’s success, game on; if it’s transferred fail, the FTP isn’t live or you incorrectly entered the Google username/password.



Final step; wait 24 hours or so. Enter ‘site:yoursitename.com’ into a Google search. This should return exacly what Google knows about your store. Then select Products from the additional search options (alongside images, news maps etc.) If everything has gone to plan, you’ll see the entire content of your store listed. If not, send an email here and see if they can investigate for you. So far, I’ve found them very helpful.

[quote name=‘David’]A Google Base account is the first step. Then register a bulk upload file name on that account. That filename is then used in the admin under Google/Froogle settings/Google filename enter the filename you have just setup.[/QUOTE]



What is the file name ext you use? .txt? We kept the file name as Products.txt.



What did you select in google base, File name & Item type while creating Specify a Bulk upload?


[quote name=‘David’]

Next, you register for an FTP account on your Google base account. The username and password you supply there goes into Google login and Google password in the cart admin.[/QUOTE]



Yes, we did


[quote name=‘David’]

Next; you wait. Give it at least an hour for the FTP account to kick in.[/QUOTE]



Yes, we did


[quote name=‘David’]

Almost there; back to admin, select Export catalogue, and click the final option on the screen Export to Google base. Watch the cart do its thing & see what the result is. If it’s success, game on; if it’s transferred fail, the FTP isn’t live or you incorrectly entered the Google username/password.[/QUOTE]



Once we do this it shows … and goes through the cycle and says “Notice - CSV file is successfully transferred”





Do you check these boxes?



[ ] HTML catalog

[ ] Consider product and category discounts




[quote name=‘David’]

Final step; wait 24 hours or so. Enter ‘site:yoursitename.com’ into a Google search. This should return exacly what Google knows about your store. Then select Products from the additional search options (alongside images, news maps etc.) If everything has gone to plan, you’ll see the entire content of your store listed. If not, send an email here and see if they can investigate for you. So far, I’ve found them very helpful.[/QUOTE]



This never happens… none of the products show? :confused:



Any suggestions?

The file name can be whatever you want, there is no suffix needed.



In Google base, I just select Products as the category I’m submitting to and leave all other options on their default.



The 2 check boxes are not selected.



If all else fails, send them an email. One thing you should check is, depending on your location, where the product set shows. When it failed to show a month or so ago, I tried the site: search on Google.com as opposed to .co.uk and found all my items listed in US base but not UK base. One email later, and they re-tagged my file to UK and everything got listed in the UK.

if you USE the html catalog on your site…YES, check it off



if you use SEO NO…you check neither of the boxes…



the instructions posted are right on…I uploaded a “test” run to my own server via the froogle module (entering my own logins and host) I had to do it twice for it to show up on my server for some reason…



If you check the export (if you ticked html catalog) you will see that it generates Product URL’s to the /catalog/ folder (which doesn’t exist in my store because I use the SEO module)

[quote name=‘David’]The file name can be whatever you want, there is no suffix needed.



In Google base, I just select Products as the category I’m submitting to and leave all other options on their default.



The 2 check boxes are not selected.



If all else fails, send them an email. One thing you should check is, depending on your location, where the product set shows. When it failed to show a month or so ago, I tried the site: search on Google.com as opposed to .co.uk and found all my items listed in US base but not UK base. One email later, and they re-tagged my file to UK and everything got listed in the UK.[/QUOTE]



When you select products as category, it lists 10 required attributes



Title

Description

Brand

Condition

ISBN

Link

Mpn

Price

Product Type

UPC



Does the export file has all these attributes?

When I try this, it says “Your PHP version does not support FTP functions.” - Has anyone come across this?

I can’t comment on the attribute setting as I don’t change Google’s default settings. I doubt that CS-Cart exports the data as I’ve never checked - sorry.



@argentice - I’ve not come across that issue before.

I have a list of items unchecked (unavailable) in products list… still they are getting uploaded as part to export to Google Base… any suggestions how to keep them to not getting uploaded… we don’t want to delete these products from the list but add later when in-stock.

[quote name=‘David’]If all else fails, send them an email. One thing you should check is, depending on your location, where the product set shows. When it failed to show a month or so ago, I tried the site: search on Google.com as opposed to .co.uk and found all my items listed in US base but not UK base. One email later, and they re-tagged my file to UK and everything got listed in the UK.[/QUOTE]



My first upload shows as US dollars, not GBP. I wonder if this is the same problem.

  1. It didn’t publish products that are listed in categories that are marked “Disabled”.


  2. It had a more sophisticated ability to determine a product’s price. For instance, I have many products that don’t have a price until an option is selected. The Googlebase Export function prices all of these products at $0.00. If the export function were option-aware, it would know that these products do have a base price that is greater than zero.

In total agreement - the auto-export/upload would be FANTASTIC, except for the fact that unavailable products get uploaded along with the rest.



Also, would be great if there was more flexibility - aka if you could flip a switch to use the “short description” as the google base item description. Almost all of our items have all pertinent descriptive info in the cart’s short description, and the long description is used for comments or flash image galleries…