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Administrative Questions

Will I be charged if a task fails?

Your account will be credited automatically if a task fails.

Will I be charged if the data feed is not accepted by the recipient?

No refund will be made if the recipient does not accept your product data, unless there is a technical flaw with the data format.

Will I be charged for submission when my store has not changed?

No. The system has an auto-skip feature. It cancels submissions if it is sure that your store data has not changed since the last submission, saving you submission fees. Auto-skip is enabled by default, but can also be disabled.

Are there any hidden fees?

Accounts are funded in advance, and there is a one-month minimum purchase requirement. Credit balances are forfeited after extended account inactivity. Other than that, there are no hidden fees, maintenance fees, minimum contracts, or cancellation fees. Credit balances are refundable at any time upon request. Setup fees are at your option. See our Billing Notes for details.

What support do I receive?

Included in your service is troubleshooting and technical support support by email. There is also help documentation available on the website.

What if I want to cancel my service?

You can stop your submissions at any time. If you want to close your account, we will provide a full refund of any remaining credit in your account (less free trial credit).

What payment methods do you accept?

We accept all major credit card payments, eChecks, and business checks. Payments are processed online through Paypal or Google Checkout, or may be mailed in.

How do I reset or recover a lost or forgotten password?

Please use our Password Reset page.

How do I get my confirmation code after registering my account?

The confirmation code will be automatically emailed to you upon registration. If you do not receive it, use our Resend Confirmation Code page. If that doesn't work, please re-register.

Where can I find your terms of service and policies?

Please see our Terms of Service page.

How do I submit or upload a data feed after changing feed settings?

To run a submission manually, simply go to My Account > Manage > Submit a Task and click the Submit button. A task status page will appear.

You do not have to stay on the page or keep your browser open for the task to complete. Go to Manage > View Results to view the submission history for the feed.

How do I merge my accounts?

If you have multiple accounts with us that you would like to merge together, please contact us and provide us with the account email addresses of the account(s) you want to deactivate and account you want to keep. We will manually process your request. Feeds, alerts, and credit balances (excluding free trial credits) will be transferred, but not account credit history.

Advanced Data Feed Features

What FTP settings can be configured?

You can configure your data feed to upload to any FTP server. On the Modify Settings page, configure the FTP server, username, and password. Use the Advanced Settings page to configure the port, initial directory, and mode (port/passive).

How do I change the display URL of my products?

You can use the Display URL setting to convert your product URLs in the data feed.

1. From the Define Fields page, look for the appropriate product URL/link field, which will have a DisplayURL parameter.
2. Click the 'Edit' link and follow the instructions.

Setting the display URL allows you to convert the domain name of your product links if your store export file uses a sub-domain of Yahoo. For example, http://store.yahoo.com/acme/productid.html can be converted http://www.acme.com/productid.html. You can also use this setting to add tracking codes to your data feed.

How to configure filters to exclude or include products.

There are many ways to exclude or include products from your data feed.

Product Filters

Product filters are analogous to email filters, and allow you to exclude items from the data feed. Your feed can also be configured to include only the items matching the filters. You can set up filters from the "Manage Feed > Product Filters" page.

You can add a filter on any field For example, you can add a filter to exclude items where 'price' < 1.00, 'title' contains "gift certificate", or 'qty' = 0.

Individual Items

To filter out an individual item, first find the item using "Product Search" or by sorting the "Product List". Then, from the "Product Detail" page, click the Exclude or Include icon. Click the Help icon there for more information.

Using your Store's Catalog

Rather than configuring filters in our system, it may be more convenient for you to control which items are excluded and included directly from your store catalog. To set that up, follow these steps:

1. Add a custom field to your store catalog, like 'exclude-from-nextag' with values 'y' and 'n'.
2. Add a catalog field to your feed for this custom field from the "Manage Feed > Define Fields" page, and mark it disabled.
3. Create a filter like 'exclude-from-nextag = "y"'.

Viewing Filtered and Unfiltered Items

After making your changes, look in the "Product List" to review the filtered and unfiltered items. Filtered items will appear with strike-through. Then, run a Submit task from "Submit a Task" to send your updated feed to its destination.

Although we do not recommend this, you can also manually remove items. Download your data feed file from the "Data Feed File" page, remove the items using a spreadsheet program, and then upload it manually. This is not recommended because you would have to repeat the manual clean-up every time.

How to download a list of filtered items

1. Go to Manage Feed > Advanced Settings
2. Change the Product Filters setting to Include products matching the filters. (If it is already set to that, change it to Exclude products matching the filters instead.)
3. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File
4. Click the Refresh button.
5. Return to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File when the task completes.
6. Click the Download button.
7. After downloading the file, be sure to change the Product Filters setting back to its original value.

How do I exclude duplicate products from my stores?

If you have multiple Yahoo stores, you may have some items that exist in multiple stores with the same product ID. Google Base does not allow you to submit the same product more than once. The duplicate exclusion feature allows you to set a priority for each store. Products existing in multiple stores will only be submitted in the store with highest priority. This ensures that your feeds only submit each product once. To use this feature, simply assign a priority to each of your data feeds from the "Advanced Settings → Duplicate Priority" page.

Legacy Yahoo Store RTML Template to Export Custom Attributes as CSV

To support legacy stores, we can now install a special template in your Yahoo Store that can export your custom item attributes or properties, such as UPC, brand/manufacturer, and manufacturer part number (MPN). The template exports the data in CSV/Excel format, which is picked up by our system whenever a data feed is generated. The data can be mapped to any data feed attributes with an Advanced Feed. The template installation costs $99. Please follow the instructions below to get started.

1. Log into your Yahoo Store Manager, and click the Access link.
2. Give Store Editor access to .
3. Submit a request using this link: Request Legacy Store RTML Template Install - $99.00
4. Send us an email with the names of the custom attributes that you want exported.

Attributes

The attributes to add are listed below. If you do not use an attribute or the value is always the same, then there is no need to add it.

brand (required)
mpn (required)
upc (required - leave blank if not available)
google-product-category (if other than default value defined in feed)
google-condition (can be 'new', 'used', or 'refurbished' only)
google-availability
size, color, gender, age-group (see apparel requirements)
uc-category (optional, for Unbound Commerce)
pg-category (optional, for Pricegrabber)

Objects and Types in Yahoo Store Editor

When you create an item, it is assigned a "type" by the Yahoo Store. The "type" defines the properties of the item, such as name, caption, UPC, brand, etc.

The Yahoo Store comes with a number of built-in types with standard properties. You are not able to add properties to the built-in types, so it is better to create a custom type based on the built-in type. If you have not already, we recommend that you copy the "item." type to create a new custom type called "c-item".

On the "c-item" type, you can add properties, and these will be applied to all items based on that type. If your items are based on the default "item." type, then to add properties, you must add them to each item individually. You can do that quickly by using the iMacros add-on for Firefox, or use an automatic Yahoo Store property addition service.

You can not delete or rename properties added to a custom type, so add these carefully. It is not possible to change the 'type' of an item after it has been added. The item must be saved offline, deleted, and then added back.

In the "Config" section of your Store Editor, you can set the default "type" for new items to the "c-item" type that you created.

Set up your "c-item" type with the properties required by the search engines, like "upc", "mpn", "brand", "google-condition", etc. Refer to the list of suggested fields to add for a complete list.

Our template will be able to export the properties assigned to your items, whether they were added via a property override or via the "type", as long as they are named consistently in each item.

Workaround

If the data you are adding to your store does not appear in your data feed, then you may need to use this workaround. Use the Yahoo Store Editor 'Find' button to look for the 'aten-software-feed' item, click 'Edit' for it, and then click 'Update'. Once you do that, you can publish as usual. This will ensure that the Yahoo Store updates that page, and that our system is able to retrieve all the latest data.

How do I add custom fields to a legacy Yahoo store?

Please see here for a new, easier alternative to the method described below: Legacy Yahoo Store RTML Template to Export Custom Attributes as CSV or Excel

Legacy Yahoo stores do not support the catalog.xml Store Export file that would contain extended product attributes. We can map 'manufacturer-part-number' (MPN) to your Yahoo Product ID or Code field if that works. For 'brand', we can set the default value equal to your store name if it applies to all your products. Otherwise, you can embed product-specific values for these attributes in your product captions or descriptions as follows:

<!--
<brand>Performance Golf</brand>
<upc>012345678912</upc>
<mpn>100XYZ</mpn>
<gpcategory>Sporting Goods &gt; Indoor Games 
     &gt; Bowling &gt; Bowling Gloves</gpcategory>
--> 

The fields shown above are the recommended minimum, but you can add or remove fields as needed. For example, if your MPNs are in your Code field, brand is your store name, and product type is the same for all products, then you can add the UPC as follows:

<!--  <upc>012345678912</upc>  --> 

For any products with no tags, or with missing values in the tags, our system will just leave the value blank in the feed. Therefore, you can add data over time and it will be automatically picked up in the feed as it is made available.

The information in the made-up HTML tags is commented out and will not be visible in your actual product pages, but you could use style sheets and display the information too. After you populate the data in your descriptions, you must contact us and we can set up your feed to extract the data.

Your feed will have to be upgraded to an Advanced feed to support this technique.

For best results, we recommend adding a category field for each shopping engine. We can configure each feed to use the appropriate data. For the other fields like <manufacturer> and <mpn>, we can use the same data for every feed, so you do not need to make a different one for each shopping engine.

Not all the items need to have the embedded attribute values. We can define default values for those items with a value missing.

If product attributes are already in your descriptions in a consistent, standardized format, we can usually write custom fields to extract the existing attribute values.

Click the following link for more information on configuring brand, MPN, and UPC.

Below is a more extensive example of the attributes you can provide using this technique. The tags are listed in order by our estimation of importance to Google.

<!--
<brand>Performance Golf</brand>
<upc>0123456789</upc>
<mpn>100XYZ</mpn>

<gpcategory>Sporting Goods &gt; Indoor Games 
     &gt; Bowling &gt; Bowling Gloves</gpcategory>

<pgcategory>Sporting Goods &gt; Bowling &gt; Gloves &amp; Accessories</pgcategory>
<bingcategory>Sports & Outdoors &gt; Bowling &gt; Gloves</bingcategory>

<googleshipping>US:::0.00</googleshipping>
<googletax>US:CA:8.25:y</googletax>

<agegroup>adult</agegroup>
<gender>unisex</gender>
<color>white</color>
<size>Small</size>
<material>leather</material>
<pattern>solid</pattern>
--> 

How do I hide, disable, or suppress fields from my data feed?

Follow the instructions below to prevent a field from being written out to the data feed file.

• Go to "Manage > Define Fields" for your feed.
• Click "Edit" for the field you want to hide.
• Uncheck the box labeled "Enabled" and click "Update".
• Run another Refresh or Submit task to update your products.

You can still apply filters to disabled fields. Also, the field will still display in the product list on our site, but will be faded out.

Use Case 1

The Basic data feed templates contain fields that, in certain circumstances, you may not wish to submit to the search engine. For example, you may want to suppress the following, optional attributes of the Google feed:

• c:options:string - all the option values of your product
• c:store_department:string - the product 'path' as defined in your Yahoo Store

The above attributes are generated and submitted as custom attributes for the purposes of keyword optimization. You may prefer to disable them if you do not want those keywords as part of your data feed, or they contain prohibited words that are causing the listings to be rejected.

Use Case 2

Suppose you have a custom field in your store such as "cpc-submit". You set it to 'Yes' when you feel the product will provide a return on investment in a CPC-based shopping engine.

In this scenario, you can add a filter to exclude the products by this field, but leave the field disabled so that it is not submitted in the data feed. Now, directly from your store catalog, you have fine-grained control over the products being submitted.

How do I deal with disapproved or disallowed items?

Shipping Terms

Google Product Search prohibits items with words like "free shipping" or "free ground shipping" anywhere in the product listing, including titles and descriptions. These items will be disapproved or disallowed by Google.

Google's content policy states, "Text relating to shopping or store policies should not be included in your feed."

To see all your disallowed items, click on the "Products" tab in your Google Merchant Center Dashboard. In the "Status" drop-down box, select "Inactive". Click an item title to see the product details.

• The best way to resolve this is to remove the policy text from your product descriptions/captions, titles, and other fields. We recommend moving policy text to fields such as 'availability', 'headline', and 'promo-text'.

  If you decide to move the policy text to another field, then you may have to modify your RTML page template to display that text. You could also move the policy text to an image, a custom field, or another store field.

• If there are not that many items, you can ignore the error or filter those items out with a product filter.
• If you need a quicker solution, you can upgrade to an Advanced feed and we can customize your data feed to remove the policy text. We may charge a small programming fee to set up the filtering rules specific to your store.

Missing Product Identifiers

If your items do not have unique identifiers, but Google has disapproved them, then you can contact Google to request an exemption or exception from the unique identifier requirement.

Prohibited Item Terms

Another common reason for disallowed items is keywords that indicate prohibited items, such as human body parts and weapons. If you believe your items should be approved, then you must contact Google Merchant Support and let them know why.

Can I add tracking codes to my product URLs?

Our system allows you to customize the product URLs in the data feed so that you can track referrals or conversions from the shopping engine, or use an analytics package such as Google Analytics.

In order to do this, you simply modify the Display Url property to include your domain name, a placeholder for the product ID, and then any tracking codes.

For example, you might specify:

  your store domain      placeholder         tracking codes        
http://www.store.com/atensoft_product_id.html?utm_source=googlebase

See our support topic on the Display URL Setting for more information. Here are the steps to edit the Display URL setting:

• Go to "Manage Feed".
• Under Settings, click "Define Fields".
• Click "Edit" in the right hand column for the Product URL field.

Google Analytics Tracking

To set up tracking codes for Google Analytics, refer to the Google Analytics URL Builder Tool. Here is a sample tracking code:

 ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=productsearch&utm_campaign=datafeed

How does campaign tracking work?

General Tracking Codes

To set up tracking codes so you can track traffic in your web server logs, refer to Tracking Your Performance: Google Product Search. Here is a sample tracking code:

     ?source=googleps

Can I integrate MySQL inventory into the quantity attribute?

Some larger Yahoo Stores track their inventory status in a MySQL database, which stores the product code and inventory count for each product. For these stores, we have the capability to read that data and include it in your data feed as the 'quantity' attribute. This allows you to appropriately mark out-of-stock items in your data feed to Google. Google may disapprove a data feed that includes out of stock items without quantity set to zero.

This feature requires an Advanced data feed, and you may need to install a simple PHP script on your Yahoo Hosting site. We may charge a small setup fee to install and configure this for you. Please contact us for more information.

Do you have code/specifications to create the Yahoo Store Export file?

Use the information below to generate a Yahoo Store export file in XML format from your product database. This XML file can be plugged directly into our system.

Here are some sample store export files:

• http://store.yahoo.com/ygear-test/objinfo.xml
• http://store.yahoo.com/ygear-test/catalog.xml

Here is an important note from the objinfo.xml files:

"Note that although the native encoding of this store's content is iso-8859-1, all the text in this XML export format has been converted to UTF-8"

We suggest sticking to UTF-8; our system uses that too.

You should set the published date in the XML tag:
<Published timestamp="1228928138"/>
and also in the 'Last-Modified' header of the HTTP request. (Our system uses the latter for caching purposes.) If it is not easy to calculate the timestamp, just set it to the current time. All the other elements in the settings section are not needed for our system.

Here is the high-level documentation on the Yahoo Store Export format.

Here are the links to the XML Document Type Definitions (DTD):

• http://store.yahoo.com/doc/dtd/StoreExport.dtd
• http://store.yahoo.com/doc/dtd/Catalog.dtd

You do not need to implement every possible field. Our system will work even if just the main ones are implemented, like title, url, image, price, and description. Path is a bit tricky, and can be left out. The catalog.xml file is entirely optional, but should be implemented in order to get all the attributes into Google and maintain ranking.

Sample code to add the 'Last Modified' HTTP header is below.

$lastModified = time();
// OR SOMETHING LIKE $lastModified = "SELECT MAX(DateModified) FROM Product";

$gmdate_mod = gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s', $lastModified) . ' GMT';
$expiresDate = gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s', time() + 3600) . ' GMT';
header("Expires: $expiresDate");
header("Last-Modified: $gmdate_mod");
header("Cache-Control: max-age=3600, private");

Note that in the objinfo.xml file, 'Description' is actually the title, and 'Caption' is actually the long description.

We recommend to flush output as it is generated. Our system has a built-in timeout if a page does not respond for a long time, so the script might not work for a larger store unless it sends the data continuously rather than buffering it before sending it. Your script might also run into memory limits if it is being buffered.

What is the 'Daily Plus' Update Frequency option?

The ‘Daily Plus’ Update Frequency option is a feed setting that automatically uploads your latest product listings to the shopping engine within a short time (about 1 hr) of your Yahoo Store being published. It submits your feed a minimum of once per day, even if you do not publish your store.

This free feature enables you to meet Google's new high-quality data requirements and provide an excellent shopping experience to your shoppers. Shopping.com also recently announced a capability to accept more frequent data feed submissions.

Instructions

1. Log into My Account
2. Click Manage for your Google feed
3. Click Modify Settings
4. Select the Daily Plus Update Frequency
5. Click the Update button to save your settings

Additional Information

Your feed will be submitted a minimum of once per day even if you do not make any changes in your Yahoo Store.

This option is currently only available for Yahoo Store data feeds to Google Product Search and Shopping.com. Feeds will not be submitted if you have no credit balance, or if there are outstanding tasks for the feed.

Your feed will be automatically resubmitted (within about 1 hr) after you change field definitions on the Define Fields page for your feed. If you are testing changes, make sure to set your feed's update frequency to Never to temporarily pause the submissions.

We recommend enabling this option for all feeds, unless your product listings change independently of your Yahoo Store Publish function. For instance, this may occur if you have an external inventory status database. Contact us if you need scheduled submissions more often than Daily, e.g. every four hours.

As per our terms of service, submissions are made on a best effort basis, and no guarantee or warranty is made as to timeliness of submissions.

Product Tagging Tool for your Yahoo Store Products

We can set up an Advanced feed for you that makes it easy to assign attributes like color, size, gender, etc. to all your items at once. This feed provides you with an HTML page of your product images with text boxes where you can enter the information. From within the same page, you can generate a CSV file with the data you entered for direct upload into your Yahoo Store Catalog Manager.

Product Tagging Tool Sample - Click to view an example of how it works. Firefox is Required

This tool is set up as an Advanced feed in your account, and has a one-time setup fee of $49. Click here to purchase the Product Tagging Tool Setup. Note that you can delete the feed from your account once you are done using it.

Time-saving Features

• Quickly assign required Google attributes to each item
• View item images when entering information
• Keystroke to convert to title case
• Keystroke to look up Google product category
• Pre-filled drop-downs for gender and age-group

Usage Instructions

1. (Optional) Set up product filters to limit the number of items.
2. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File
3. If needed, refresh the file
4. Click the View as HTML button
5. Enter the data for each product in the text boxes
6. Click the "Download as CSV" button
7. Upload the resulting CSV file to your Yahoo Store
8. Return to Step 1 and repeat for additional items. Data you have already entered will be pre-filled.

Filtering Instructions

Change the 'mode' to 'Include products matching the filters' from the Manage Feed > Advanced Settings page.

Now, only products matching all the filters will be included, and all others will be excluded. For example, you can add a criteria that says 'brand' contains 'Nike'. That way, only items with 'Nike' in the 'brand' will be included. Once you work on those items, you can move onto another brand.

Working in Batches

To avoid losing work due to mistakes like accidentally closing the browser window, we recommend working in small batches of 50-100 items. This will also ensure faster performance. Note that you can upload and commit multiple batches of updates before republishing your store.

1. Go to Manage Feed > Product Filters
2. Delete any previously existing row_number filters.
3. Select the row_number field, is less than operator, enter 1 in the box, and click Add Filter.
4. Select the row_number field, is greater than or equal to operator, enter 100 in the box, and click Add Filter.
5. Refresh the feed and now the tool should contain only items 1 through 99.
6. Repeat the steps above for the next range of items.

Saving your Work

There is no mechanism to save your work and come back later. If you close your browser, all the work will be lost. You must click Download CSV and save the resulting file to your desktop and upload it into the store to save your work. The next time you publish the store and refresh the feed, all the data you had uploaded into the store will be pre-filled in the tool, and then you can continue where you left off.

So the procedure looks like this:

Refresh Feed - View as HTML - Data-entry - Download CSV - Upload to Yahoo - Commit - Publish - REPEAT

Multiple Users

In order for multiple people to work on different parts of the spreadsheet at one time, I suggest setting up the filters for different item groups for each user, e.g. 1-99, 100-199, 200-299. After setting up the filters, each user would then click Download instead of View as HTML. The HTML file would be saved to the desktop, and then each user can open that file from their desktop to view and work on their file independently.

Exclude or Filter Out Items That Do Not Meet Google Requirements

Our system has the capability to validate your Google feed and exclude items that do not meet Google requirements. This feature is currently only supported for Google feeds.

Set up a filter to exclude the items with errors by following these instructions:

1. Go to Manage Feed > Product Filters
2. Select the item_errors field, select does not equal, click String, and leave the text box empty.
3. Click Add
4. Refresh or Submit the feed

As you correct the errors in your store, the items will automatically be included and submitted in the feed.

For a summary of all item errors and warnings, go to Manage Feed > Validation Report.

Adding the validation fields

All Google feeds should contain two special fields, 'item_errors' and 'item_warnings'. If you have an Advanced feed and these fields do not exist, follow these instructions to add them:

1. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields
2. From the Add Field form at the top, select Template - Placeholder and click Add
3. Uncheck the Enabled checkbox, enter item_errors as the Name, and then click Add
4. Repeat the above for the item_warnings field.

Benefits of Submitting to Google Product Search

How will I benefit from being listed in Google Product Search?

Google Product Search is an extension of the Google search engine that millions of people around the globe use daily to research products before they purchase. Listing your product in Google Product Search is a free way to extend the reach of your marketing efforts to millions of new customers. From Google Product Search's Information for Merchants.

How I can optimize my data feed to create more traffic to my website and boost sales?

Look through our support articles to find numerous optimization strategies. We offer a variety of optimization services, which you can read about here: Optimizing Your Data Feed.

BigCommerce Setup Guide

How to enable API access for BigCommerce

NOTE: BigCommerce support is in beta, and this information is incomplete.

1. Log into your BigCommerce Store Control Panel as admin.
2. Click the Users link.
3. Click the Create a User Account button.
4. Enter the following information:
   • Username: atensoftware
   • For Password, please create a password. Here is a random one for your convenience: gwwavas7
   • Email:
   • First Name: Aten
   • Last Name: Software
   • Status: Active
   • Permissions: Sales Manager
   • Enable the API?: Yes, allow this user to use the API
5. Click Save and you will be redirected back to the View Users page.
6. From the View Users page, click Edit for the atensoftware user.
7. Scroll down and copy the API Token and API Path.
8. Paste the password you created, API Token, API Path, and any special instructions into the 'Additional Comments' field of our Express Setup Request Form, and click Submit Request. You do not need to enter any other information and just ignore the payment step. Submit a separate request for each store.

Bing Shopping Data Feed

What are the advantages of Bing Shopping?

Yahoo Store owners can get excited about the new Bing Shopping program by Microsoft. It is free to submit your product listings to them. Bing Shopping has gone through numerous incarnations, including Jellyfish, MSN Live ProductUpload, and Bing Cashback. It should become a major shopping venue as Microsoft aggressively promotes it.

What are the links for Bing Shopping?

Bing has created a new Merchant Self-Service Portal.

• Bing Shopping Merchant Self-Service Portal - Sign up here
• Information on Bing Shopping
• Bing Shopping Forum for Merchants
• freeshop@microsoft.com - Email address for Bing Shopping

How do I set up a data feed for Bing Shopping?

Use the instructions below to set up a Bing Shopping feed for your Yahoo Store. If you have multiple stores, you can manage them all from within one Adcenter account.

1. Sign up for Bing Shopping at Microsoft AdCenter.
   • Bing Shopping Merchant Portal is a sub-account of Microsoft AdCenter
   • You will be required to enter a credit card, but you will not be charged anything unless you set up pay-per-click ad campaigns.
2. Log into Microsoft AdCenter
3. Go to Tools > Bing Shopping Account Management
4. Either create a new account or migrate your existing account by entering your Store Settings or Bing Shopping login, respectively. (NOTE: If you are prompted to sign-in, do that, sign-out, and then repeat the previous two steps.)
5. On the "Store Settings" tab, although it does not say this, you are required to upload a logo and fill in the other information.
6. On the "Catalog Management" tab, make sure the following settings are selected and then click "Save".
   • Feed Format: Bing Shopping / Cashback
   • How to Provide Feed Files: Merchant upload
   • Feed file name: bingshopping
7. On the "FTP Settings" tab, enter an FTP login and password and click "Save".

Your Bing Shopping account will now be set up, but the FTP account will be "Inactive". Please allow up to two weeks for the FTP account to be activated. Once that is done, continue to set up the feed on our site as described next.

7. Log into our site and click "My Account > Add Feed".
8. Enter your Store Name, select the Bing Shopping Template, and click "Create Feed".
9. Continue to "Modify Settings", and enter the Objinfo and/or Catalog export URLs for your Yahoo Store.
10. Enter the FTP Username and FTP Password from the "FTP Settings" tab in your Bing Merchant account. Set the submission frequency to 'Daily'. Click "Update" to save the settings.
11. Run a submission task to perform your first upload.

• After your first submission, it may take up to 10 business days for the products to be listed.
• Please contact freeshop@microsoft.com if you have any questions about the status of your listings. They tend to be very responsive (within 1-3 business days).

Bing Categories - What are they and how do I set them?

1. Go to "My Account > Manage Feed > Define Fields" on our site.
2. Click "Edit" next to the BingCategory (a.k.a. B_Category) field.
3. Enter the appropriate category from the table below into the "Default Value" box.
4. Click "Update" to save the settings.
5. Resubmit the feed from the "Tasks > Submit a Task" menu item.

Alternatively, you can add a custom field to your Yahoo Store catalog called "bingcategory", and fill in the appropriate top-level category there. Note, you should only enter the top-level category, and not any other sub-category information into this field.

Arts & Crafts	Baby & Nursery	Beauty & Fragrance
Books & Magazines	Cameras & Optics	Car & Garage
Clothing & Shoes	Collectibles & Memorabilia	Computing
Electronics	Flowers	Gourmet Food & Chocolate
Health & Wellness	Home Furnishings	Jewelry & Watches
Kitchen & Housewares	Lawn & Garden	Miscellaneous
Movies	Music	Musical Instruments
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Resolving Bing Shopping Products Not Listed Problem

Use the following steps to check the status of your Bing Shopping data feed listings.

Verifying Feed Submissions

1. Login to Microsoft Adcenter.
2. Go to Tools > Bing Shopping Account Management and click the "FTP Settings" tab.
3. Verify that the "FTP account status" is "Active".
4. Go to Tools > Bing Shopping Account Management and click the "Catalog Management" tab.
5. Verify that the "Last feed file updated (UTC)" is a recent date. Also, look in the "Recent feeds" table at the bottom to see if the "Status" is "OK".
6. Check that the feed submissions from our system are successful by looking at the "Manage Feed > View Results" page.

Verifying Product Listings

1. Go to Bing Shopping and run a search to see if your your products are listed.
2. Go to Bing Shopping Store Directory and check if your store name is listed.

If you do not see your products listed or the FTP status is "Inactive" for more than two weeks, then please contact Bing Shopping at freeshop@microsoft.com. Here is a sample email:

My Adcenter Account ID is X123456. My feed is submitting, but my products do not appear in the search results and my store is not listed in the store directory. Please let me know my feed status.

If you have a prior email from them, replying to that email often gets a quicker response. Bing Shopping is fairly responsive, so you should expect a reply within a few days.

Bing FTP Error "User cannot log in" with feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com

You may sporadically receive the following email from our system:

Error logging in to FTP server 'feeds.adcenter.microsoft.com:21'. Check your credentials. E_WARNING: ftp_login(): User cannot log in.

If your Bing feed had been working fine previously, then this problem is caused by Bing's FTP server. To resolve the issue, please send the following email to freeshop@microsoft.com.

My Adcenter Account ID is X0999999. I am receiving sporadic "User can not log in" errors for my FTP uploads using Aten Software's data feed system. Please investigate.

You can find your Adcenter Account ID by logging into adcenter.microsoft.com and looking in the Account drop-down, as shown below.

Your data feed will continue running daily and the error should go away on the next submission. By sending the email above, you will notify Bing that there is a problem and assist us with obtaining a permanent resolution.

If you have never set up your Bing Merchant Account in Adcenter, please refer to our Bing Setup Instructions.

Data Feed Files

What is a data feed file?

The data feed file is simply a text file containing your product data, in a format suitable for upload to a comparison shopping engine. A data feed file may also be referred to as a product feed, data feed, bulk upload, or file.

Where is my data feed file?

Our system automatically creates and uploads your data feed file by FTP. You never have to work with spreadsheets, or download/upload manually.

Can I download my data feed file?

Yes, you can easily download the entire data feed file generated by our system. You can create or refresh the file from your account anytime and as often as you wish. The file will be available for download for 30 days. Your latest store data will be retrieved (if necessary) before creating the file.

How do I download my data feed file?

1. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File
2. Click the Download button

You can also view the file in your browser as plain text by clicking on the File URL link or clicking the View as Text button. If you click the View as HTML button, the file will open as web page in your web browser.

If the file does not exist, simply click the Create button to queue a task. When the task completes, click the Download Feed File link that appears.

How do I schedule my data feed file to be refreshed automatically?

This data feed file is regenerated automatically whenever your feed is submitted to a shopping engine. Therefore, no action needs to be taken. The URL of the file can be found on the "Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File" page.

Some shopping engines do not accept data feed files by FTP, or you may want to disable the FTP upload. In that case, you can configure your feed as follows:

• Go to "Manage Feed > Advanced Settings".
• Change the 'Upload by FTP' setting to 'No - Update data feed file only'.
• Click 'Update' to save the settings.

Open tab-delimited TXT or CSV file in Excel or Open Office Calc

Use these "how to" instructions to open any delimited format text file as a spreadsheet. The instructions below are for tab-delimited files, but can be adapted for comma-separated or pipe-separated files easily by simply choosing the appropriate delimiter/separator.

Some feeds use comma as the 'delimiter' or 'separator'. You can find your feed's settings on the "Manage Feed > Advanced Settings" page.

Open Office Calc 3.3.0

1. Start Open Office Calc
2. Go to File > Open.
3. In the Files of type: drop-down menu, choose Text CSV (*.csv; *.txt), which is in the section that begins with ODF Spreadsheet (*.ods)
4. Select the file and click Open
5. In the Text Import dialog, choose the following settings and click OK
   • Character set: Unicode (UTF-8)
   • Language: Default - English (USA)
   • From row: 1
   • Separator options: Separated by Tab
   • Text delimiter: " (double-quote)
   • Quoted field as text: checked
   • Detect special numbers: unchecked
6. The settings above will be remembered by OpenOffice, so the next time you open the file, you can simply review the settings and click OK.

Excel 2002 SP3 and Excel 2007

Tip: Typical TXT and CSV files can be opened rapidly using this shortcut. Open Excel and close the blank workbook. Drag and drop the file onto the dark gray working area of Excel. Excel will automatically detect the format and load the spreadsheet instantly. If this doesn't work, use the full instructions below.

1. Start Excel
2. Go to File > Open (In Excel 2007 and up, click on the Microsoft Office Button on the top-left to access the File menu.)
3. In the Files of type: drop-down menu, choose Text Files (*.prn; *.txt; *.csv)
4. Select the file and click Open
5. In the Text Import Wizard - Step 1 of 3 dialog, choose the following settings and click Next
   • Original data type: Delimited
   • Start import at row: 1
   • File origin: 437 : OEM United States
   Note, in later versions of Excel, you may be able to choose UTF-8, which is the actual 'origin' or 'encoding' of the file.
6. In the Text Import Wizard - Step 2 of 3 dialog, choose the following settings and click Next
   • Delimiters: Tab
   • Treat consecutive delimiters as one: checked
   • Text qualifier: " (double-quote)
7. In the Text Import Wizard - Step 3 of 3 dialog, leave the settings as-is and click "Finish".

Row limits and field length limits

• Starting with version 3.3, the OpenOffice Calc row limit is 1,048,576 rows. Prior versions were limited to 65,536 rows.
• Excel 2002 is limited to 64K rows, but later versions of Excel support 1M rows.
• Excel 2002 through 2010 have a field length limit of 32,767 characters. If you have a caption or other field that exceeds this length, the the extra data will flow to the next cells or rows, and the file will appear to be corrupt.

How do I view all the items with missing data in my feed?

To view all your items with missing or invalid values, simply download the data feed file from your account, open it in Excel, and then sort by the appropriate column.

• How do I download my data feed file?
• How do I open my data feed file in Excel (or OpenOffice)?

Data Feed Optimization for Google Product Search

Do you offer search engine optimization for Google Product Search?

We offer one-on-one consulting to optimize your data feed. While we can help you optimize your feed, we do not offer content optimization services at this time. However, we have collected the best advice we can find below, and can assist you in following that advice. By simply following these tips, you can dramatically increase your ranking in Google Product Search.

What is the recommended update frequency for my data feed?

For Google and Shopping.com feeds from Yahoo Stores, we recommend the 'Daily Plus' option with Auto-Skip disabled. For all other data feeds we recommend 'Daily' with Auto-Skip disabled. Updates are free, so there is no additional cost to make this change.

Google recommends daily submission as a best practice that will improve your ranking. This is recommended even if your listings do not change often.

To change the setting, simply log into your Aten Software account. Go to the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page. Set the "Update Frequency", the "Auto-Skip" setting to "Disabled", and then save the settings.

Tax and Shipping settings for Google Product Search

Starting June 3, 2011, tax and shipping settings are required for all Google product feeds targeting the United States. You can enter these settings at the item-level or account-level. It is easier to enter the settings at the account level.

Account-level tax and shipping rules

• Tax and Shipping Settings in your Google Merchant Dashboard
• Tax & Shipping Instructions in Google Merchant Center Help

Item-level tax and shipping rules

Our Google feeds are preconfigured to read Google shipping/tax information from the "google-shipping" and "google-tax" fields in your Yahoo Store catalog. If you need to supply item-level tax and shipping values, then please refer to the instructions below to set up these fields.

• How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?
• Tax & Shipping Instructions - click on the 'shipping' and 'tax' attribute links

How do I populate recommended or required attributes?

Google require a condition value of 'New', 'Used', or 'Refurbished' for each product. They also strongly recommend Brand and Product Type values.

You have two choices for populating these fields. One is to supply a default value that applies to all items, and the other is to supply a field name from your Yahoo Store Catalog. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page. Click “Edit” for the field, and then enter the default value and/or catalog field.

If you do not have a catalog field, then we suggest you provide default values as follows:

• Brand Default - Enter your store name, e.g. Acme Art Supply, Foo Widgets, Bar Electronics, various, etc.
• Condition Default - Enter 'New', 'Used', or 'Refurbished'
• Product Type Default - Look up an appropriate category on the Product Type Attribute page

Google Product Category and Product Type attributes

Summary

• google_product_category - only valid Google categories are allowed
• product_type - any merchant-supplied category is allowed

Product Category

Use the instructions below to add a default Google product category value for your data feed. Setting this field is required by Google beginning Sep. 22, 2011.

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page.
2. Click “Edit” for the google_product_category field.
3. Look up the appropriate category on the Google Product Taxonomy page.
   1. Expand categories and click on the category name. Select the most generic category that applies to all your products.
   2. From the box just above the category list, copy the category value that appears next to the "Text:" label. Do not use the "XML:" version.
   3. You can also use the Search box to search the taxonomy.
4. Enter the category in the "Default Value" box without double-quotes, and click the 'Update' button. You can only choose one category.
5. Resubmit your data feed.

Your feed is pre-configured to submit from the google-product-category field in your Yahoo Store catalog. To submit category information per item, follow the steps below:

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-product-category. If you do not know how, refer to the instructions to add the google-availability field.
2. Populate the values for the field.

To verify that your feed is using the google_product_category field from your store catalog, or to configure a different field name, following these steps:

1. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields page.
2. Click “Edit” for the google_product_category field.
3. Enter the field name from your store catalog in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

Product Type

'product_type' is a recommended field and you can provide your own, merchant-specific category in this field. It is pre-configured to the 'Path' field from your Yahoo Store. For any items without a Path, you can set a 'DefaultPath' by going to "Manage Feed > Define Fields > Edit product_type".

How to configure Google Product Search Availability attribute

Your data feed submits the ‘in stock’ value in this attribute by default, so there is generally no need to do anything further. Note that your data feed automatically filters out items with a zero price, and items with Orderable set to No.

To specify availability information for specific items, follow these steps.

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-availability by following these steps:
   1. Log into your Yahoo Store Manager
   2. Go to Catalog Manager > Products tab > Manage Tables
   3. Select your product table using the Manage table drop-down menu.
   4. Click the Add New Attributes link just above the Custom Attributes section.
   5. In the Add New Attribute dialog box, enter the following:
      • Attribute Name: google-availability
      • Format: text
      • Default Value: in stock
      • Leave the “Description” field blank.
   6. Click Add
2. Populate one of the values listed below for each item. Google only accepts these values for the availability attribute. Refer to Yahoo Store product editing instructions for more information.
   • 'in stock' - ships in 3 business days or less
   • 'available for order' - ships in 4 or more business days
   • 'out of stock' - you are not currently taking orders
   • 'preorder' - you are taking orders for an unreleased product

Your data feed's availability attribute should already be configured to read from the google-availability field. If you need to change the field name, follow these steps:

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page.
2. Click “Edit” for the availability field.
3. Enter the field name from your products table in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

What are the ways to submit custom attributes in my Google feed?

If you have more fields in your Yahoo Store catalog, you can output them to your data feed by adding Catalog Fields. You can also add Static Value fields, which will supply the same value for each product. The name of the field in the output file can be almost anything--see the Google Product Search Attribute List and Defining your Custom Attributes for details.

The values in the above field types are passed through directly without any changes. If you need special handling, consider upgrading to an Advanced data feed. We have customizable field types that can do things such as remove HTML tags, remove boilerplate text, and re-categorize products.

How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?

You can easily add custom fields to your Yahoo Store catalog in order populate item-specific values. Check out the excellent video by 1choice4yourstore, Yahoo Store Database Uploads Video Tutorial, for a helpful overview. You can also refer to the Adding, editing, and removing attributes from tables instructions and contact Yahoo Store technical support for further assistance.

Suggested Fields to Add

The fields below can be added as 'Shopping Fields' to the table in Yahoo Store Catalog Manager. The fields in bold are pre-configured in our Google feeds.

• product-url
• manufacturer
• yshopping-category
• merchant-category
• brand
• upc
• manufacturer-part-number
• condition
• ypath
• color
• yahoo-shopping-category
• ean
• promo-text
• classification
• in-yshopping
• model-number
• gender
• age-range
• age-group
• size
• style-number
• msrp
• medium
• isbn
• style

We recommend adding the following custom fields in the 'Custom Fields' section of the table, when applicable:

• google-product-category
• google-shipping
• google-tax
• google-online-only
• google-condition

Populating the Fields

After adding the custom fields, use the Yahoo links below for instructions on how populate the data using Excel or OpenOffice Calc.

• What is the Upload/Download feature?
• Yahoo Store New Catalog Manager Help

How do I add attributes to my data feed?

These instructions describe how to add attributes such as brand, MPN, UPC, and ISBN to your data feed. This assumes that you have the appropriate field added and populated in your Yahoo Store Catalog. If that has not been completed, please refer to How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?. If you have a legacy store, please refer to How do I add custom attributes to a legacy Yahoo store?.

1. Go to "Manage Feed > Define Fields".
2. Select 'Public | Catalog Field' in the drop-down at the bottom of the page, and click 'Add'.
3. In the 'Name' box, enter the name of the Google attribute in lowercase. Here are some examples: brand, manufacturer, mpn, upc, isbn, ean.
4. Leave the 'Enabled', 'Position', and 'Default Value' settings at their defaults.
5. In the 'Catalog Field Name', enter the name of the matching custom field from your Yahoo Store Catalog in lowercase, and then click 'Add'.

After completing the above steps, run a Refresh task from the "Manage Feed > Submit a Task" page, then go to the "Manage Feed > View Random Product" to see a sample item listing. If the listing looks good, run a Submit task to update your listings.

How can I find out what attributes I should add to my data feed?

You can use the Google Base Competitor Analysis Tool to find appropriate attributes to submit with your products. Enter keywords your customers use to find your products, and you can see the standard and custom attributes being submitted by your competitors.

How do I optimize my keywords for Google Product Search?

Because Google’s search algorithms are secret, there is no guaranteed way to improve your visibility and ranking in the search results. Furthermore, as the algorithms change over time, your visibility and ranking will also change over time. The following are only general techniques to improve your search engine ranking for Google Product Search.

The closer your product descriptions and titles match the keywords that people are typing into the search box, the higher the resulting listing. Keyword order and spelling are important. Matches in titles rank higher than matches in descriptions. On your site’s product pages, text size, placement, and contrast affect the importance of the keywords. (Hidden text in meta tags is generally ignored.) These guidelines are not absolute.

Be sure to read through the Google Merchant Center Editorial Guidelines.

We also highly recommend the Yahoo Store Webinars.

Example

Target Keywords

nike air max 360 mens

Title

Nike Air Max 360 Mens Size 7 Sneakers

Description

Nike Air Max 360 Mens Size 7 Sneakers BB low basketball shoes. The Mens Nike Air Max 360 BB is designed for the athlete...

Strategies

• Keywords are the first words in the title and description.
• Keyword spelling matches exactly, including punctuation and plurality (case does not matter).
• Keyword order matches exactly.
• Keywords are repeated in the description multiple times, with variations.
• Use the suggestions that pop-up when you search in Google to determine the correct keywords to target. The most popular keyword phrases appear higher.
• Longer keyword phrases (i.e. the most specific ones) have the highest conversion rates.

Will Checkout badges improve my ranking in Google Product Search?

Google Product Search is an unbiased product search engine, and therefore, usage of Google Checkout or Adwords does not affect your ranking. However, your store will be more prominently featured by having the Checkout badge next to your items. This is one avenue you may wish to investigate further. We currently do not offer any services in this regard.

How do I enable Google Checkout Badges on my product listings?

We currently do not have specific instructions on enabling Google Checkout Badges for your items submitted to Google Merchant Center. However, you may find the following links helpful.

• Integrating with Google Products > Google Checkout
• Google Merchant Center > Google Checkout settings
• Google Merchant Center > Sell your products through Google Checkout
• Google Checkout > How to check badge status
• Google Checkout > Badge requirements
• Google Merchant Center Forum > Google Base: My listing in the product search does not include a Google Checkout badge

Title Length for SEO: Importance of the 70 character limit for Google

According to Google's Product Feed Specifications, the 'title' attribute has a suggested maximum length of 70 characters. Therefore, products with long titles will still be listed in search results.

However, since Google search results only display about 70 characters of the title, and products with long titles are not as user-friendly, it stands to reason that products with longer titles may be demoted in the ranking. Furthermore, the words after 70 characters may not be considered as relevant. Some SEO experts also recommend keeping page titles under 70 chars. Therefore, our opinion is that while an appropriate title length is important, it is not strictly necessary for every product. Similar reasoning applies to page titles for Google's organic search ranking.

Note that we have no direct knowledge of Google's algorithms, so the above suggestions represent an opinion only.

If your product titles are excessively long, we can program your (Advanced) feed so that all the titles are limited to a 70 character title length by truncating long titles at a word boundary.

Setting the online_only (online only) attribute

Use the instructions below to set the online_only value for your Google Product Search feed. Enter 'y' if the item is only available to purchase online, or 'n' if a customer can buy (or pick-up) the posted item at your physical location.

1. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page in our site.
2. Click “Edit” for the online_only field.
3. Enter either 'y' or 'n' in the "Default Value" box without quotes, and click the 'Update' button.
4. Resubmit your data feed.

If online_only is different for each item, follow these steps.

1. Add a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog called google-online-only.
2. Populate the values for the field with either 'y' or 'n'.
3. Go to the “Manage Feed > Define Fields” page in our site.
4. Click “Edit” for the online_only field.
5. Enter google-online-only in the 'Catalog Field Name' setting, and click the 'Update' button.
6. Resubmit your data feed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does your service do?

Our web-based software allows you to submit product listings from your online store to shopping search engines like Google, Bing, etc. Your monthly service fee pays us to ensure your feeds are running as scheduled, update your feeds when specifications change, and provide technical support.

What services are not included?

While we are responsible to submit your product data feed, unfortunately, we do not offer bid management for cost-per-click advertising campaigns at this time. We suggest that merchant's manage their campaigns directly, or hire a company that specializes in that type of service.

What do you charge?

We charge a flat fee of $13.50/month for your first data feed, and $4.50/month for each additional data feed.

A data feed is one store/shopping engine combination, and includes unlimited products and submissions. (Advanced data feeds are $7.50 extra per month.) We offer a variety of data feed optimization services for an additional charge.

How long does it take to get my products listed?

You can register an account right now and submit your first data feed immediately. Most shopping engines (including Google) will start displaying your product listings in search results within a day or two.

How long have you been in business?

We have been submitting daily data feeds to Google for over 7 years, since May 2004. We currently submit 3M+ product listings to over 20+ shopping engines.

Do you have any references?

We are 5-star rated on Google Checkout. Click the button below to see our reviews.

Please contact us if you would like contact information for our references.

How do I get started?

1. Register an account - sign-up is free; no credit card needed
2. Create a merchant account for the shopping engine - sign-up links
3. Add the data feed - refer to our setup instructions
4. Submit the feed from your Aten Software account
5. Check your merchant account to see the status
6. Schedule your feed to run automatically

How do I pay for your service?

Your account starts with a $13.50 free trial credit. Monthly service fees are deducted each day in a small amount. When the balance gets low, you will receive low balance emails with a link to purchase credit. Follow the link to complete your payment.

We accept Google Checkout and Paypal. To simply pay by credit card, select Paypal and then click the link, Don't have a Paypal account?.

We do not store credit card information or do automatic billing.

Google Product Search

How long does it take for my products to be listed?

This service allows you to submit your products immediately. Google Base will process the submission within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The steps are are listed below:

• Submission - Our server uploads your data feed file to Google's server (via FTP file transfer)
• Pick-up - "Data Feeds" tab shows "Processing..." and time of upload.
• Processing complete - "Data Feeds" tab shows number of items inserted or an error message
• Items Inactive - Items will listed in the "Inactive Items" tab as "Published... searchable soon"
• Items Active - Items will be listed in the "Active Items" tab as "Published and searchable"
• Statistics and Quality - Available in "Data Quality" and "Performance" tabs (always delayed one to two days)
• Image Thumbnails - thumbnail images will appear as image not available until Google’s server fetches them

How does this service categorize my products?

This service leaves the product categories exactly as they are defined in your Yahoo! store. You can define a default category for uncategorized products. Google Product Search will map your categories onto their own categories. You can also specify a value for the product type attribute.

Will my images be submitted to Google and other shopping engines?

Yes, our system reads the image URLs from the store export files of your Yahoo Store or other shopping cart. Our software correctly parses out the image links, and submits them in the data feed.

Yahoo Store image URLs change every time you publish your store. To handle this, we submit an updated feed every day.

Some shopping engines, like Google Product Search and Shopping.com, accept feed updates more frequently. For those, we also have a 'Daily Plus' scheduling option where the feed is resubmitted within about an hour of your publishing your store. This ensures that the shopping engines have the latest product image URLs within about an hour.

Some of our feeds can also be configured to submit additional image URLs besides the main image of the product. Doing so may improve your ranking in the shopping engines.

How often can I submit my feed?

You can schedule your feed to submit daily, weekly, bi-weekly, tri-weekly, monthly, or never. The submissions are executed in the early morning hours. Please contact us if you require multiple submissions per day.

How are item options submitted?

Product options are automatically recognized and submitted. They are added as a custom attribute for Google Base feeds in a readable format, e.g. "Smily Face T-Shirt - Options: Size: S, M, L - Color: White, Black". More keywords in the description help your search result rankings for longer, multi-term queries. Longer queries tend to have higher conversion rates.

Is additional information for books, music, or videos submitted?

Yes, you can add the information as attributes of your data feed.

Is there support for extended information, such as availability, shipping cost, or quantity pricing?

Yes, you can add any number of attributes to your data feeds.

Is the service available for non-US stores or in alternate currencies?

No. This feature is not yet available.

Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?

The following types of listings are filtered out automatically by our feed system, and will not appear in the product list.

• Product listings with zero price or no price
• Product listings where Orderable is 'No'
• Section or category pages

Google, and most other shopping engines, require item listings to have a purchasable product on them with a minimum price of $0.01.

How much additional traffic (or clickthroughs, leads, sales) will my store attract if it is listed in Google?

You may or may not receive additional traffic. It depends on many factors including your product mix, pricing, Google's search algorithms, and buyer tastes. This service only manages data submission, and does not guarantee that your products will be accepted by Google, or that you will see a traffic increase. Please see the Terms of Service for details.

I run multiple Yahoo! stores, can I set up multiple feeds?

Yes, you can set up any number of Yahoo! stores from your account. For Google Product Search data feeds, you can request a multi-client account from them.

I run multiple Yahoo! stores, but some products appear in more than one store. Is this a problem?

No. Our service offers an exclusive automatic duplicate exclusion feature. You can set a priority for each store, and then products in multiple stores will only be submitted in the highest priority store. This ensures that all your products are submitted, and each is only submitted once.

What should be my data feed settings in Google Merchant Center?

When you create your data feed, select 'Products' as the type, 'googlebase' as the format, and enter a file name ending in '.txt'. The default settings will work with our system, but if you need to verify them, follow these instructions:

1. Go to your Google Merchant Center > Data Feeds tab
2. Under the Upload column, make sure that it says Create schedule or Paused schedule
3. If there is an active schedule, click on it, and then click the Pause Schedule button
4. Click Settings under the data feed file name
5. Verify the settings below:
   • Filename: anything ending in .txt (by default, googlebase.txt)
   • Feed format: googlebase
   • File format: Text
   • Encoding: UTF-8 (Autodetect is not reliable)
   • Delimiter: Tab
   • Use quoted fields: No
   • Click Save changes

1. Log into your Aten Software account
2. Go to "My Account > Manage Feed > Advanced Settings".
3. Set the the "File Enclosure" setting to "None" and click 'Update'

Notes

Disabling quoted fields is the default and recommended setting.

Note that attributes that consist of multiple sub-attributes, such as 'tax' and 'shipping', do not work if enclosed in quotations. Therefore, we recommend to set Use quoted fields to "No".

Setting "Encoding" to "Autodetect" usually works fine, but if you add any special characters to your titles or descriptions, then there is a chance that Google will not detect the encoding and then they would reject those listings. Google's auto-detect logic is not perfect (it may only look at the top 100 lines of the data feed file). Therefore, it is safer to set "Encoding" to "UTF-8".

What is the difference between Google Base, Merchant Center, and Product Search?

Google Product Search is Google's shopping search engine for end-users. Google Merchant Center is the site for merchants to upload their product listings. Google Base is the site for uploading other types of listings to Google, such as real estate and job postings.

I want to submit my feed to another product search engine, do you support it?

Yes! We now support a multitude of different shopping engines.

Is it possible to change my product descriptions before they are sent to Google Product Search?

This is not possible. Our system passes your Yahoo store product description exactly to Google Product Search, after stripping HTML tags. Google Product Search requires that the description submitted match the description displayed on your site. In order to make changes, you must edit the product descriptions or store templates of your Yahoo store.

My product listings now appear in Google Product Search, but not all of my images.

Images thumbnails are shown after the products are listed. It can take days for their system to process all your product images into thumbnails.

How can I get higher ranking in the search results?

Google has been giving higher ranking to more optimized item listings. In order to maintain and enhance ranking, merchants need to be proactive with their data feeds, and follow Google's Improving your Data Quality guidelines.

We offer a one-time data feed optimization service for a flat fee. We would go through and add relevant attributes to your feed, and then offer you tailored suggestions for additional improvement. In some cases, it can make a big improvement in your ranking, although this is not guaranteed. See our Data Feed Optimization page for details, or submit an optimization request.

You also have the option of optimizing the feed on your own by following our Data Feed Optimization Tips for Google Product Search.

If you have a legacy store, you can add attribute data to your product captions. Our Advanced feeds have the capability to extract that information and submit the attributes to Google. See our instructions for legacy stores for more information.

How do I get my store reviews or ratings to appear in Google Shopping?

Unfortunately, there is currently no way to control any aspect of your reviews in Google Product Search. Google does not provide any technical support for this, and they do not explain how reviews are gathered.

Changes are coming soon though. They are now accepting reviews from Bazaarvoice, and they hope to add additional partners, as well as a self-submission model. See the links below.

• Ratings in Google Product Search
• Announcing the Google Product Reviews Program

What price is submitted for items with a minimum purchase quantity?

Google requires the following convention, according to Requirements for the "price" attribute.

If your items are sold in bulk, you must list the total price for the minimum purchasable quantity. For example, if a user must purchase a minimum quantity of ten items, you should include the total price for ten items (the minimum purchasable quantity).

Our system always submits the lowest sale price for your item. If the minimum purchasable quantity is always one, then submitting the sale price works fine. If it is greater than one, then we can program a workaround for this with an Advanced feed if the minimum quantity is available in your catalog.

What are Google's new requirements for unique product identifiers?

Starting May 3rd, 2011, Google will no longer list items without unique identifiers! See here for details: Changes for Google Product Search Merchants.

Requirements by Category

• Media (i.e., Music, Movies, Video games) - Requires UPC, EAN, or JAN
• Books - Requires ISBN
• Apparel, custom made goods - No identifiers are required at the moment
• All other categories - At least two of the following three identifiers: UPC (or EAN/JAN), Brand, and MPN.

By supplying the attributes, Google will be able to match your items up with items from other sellers. Your store will appear when shoppers click "Compare Prices" for a particular product.

All Google feeds are pre-configured to obtain the above information from your 'brand', 'manufacturer-part-number', and 'upc' fields in your Yahoo Store Catalog Manager. If your field names are different, you can simply change the settings from the "Manage Feed > Define Fields" page. Otherwise, if you do not have those fields added and populated, continue reading.

More Information

Please refer to the articles below for help on adding these fields to your data feeds.

• How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?
• How should I configure the brand, MPN, UPC, and manufacturer fields?
• How do I deal with disapproved or disallowed items?
• How do I add attributes to my data feed?

Once you have added the data to your store catalog, you can request our Data Feed Optimization Service to modify your feed mapping as needed.

References:

• Improving the Product Search Experience - Google Blog
• Unique Product Identifiers - Google Merchant Center Support
• New Google attribute requirements discussion - Google Merchant Center Forum

How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

Google requires at least two of the following three attributes for almost every product.

• Brand - brand name or manufacturer of the item
• MPN - manufacturer part number
• UPC - universal product code (EAN and ISBN can also be submitted)

Read the tips below, and then look over How do I add custom fields to my Yahoo Store?

Tips

Leave UPC blank if it is not available.

Not all items have UPC codes. For those items, leave the UPC field blank and provide the brand and manufacturer part number (mpn) instead.

Use real, accurate information

It is not useful to insert dummy, made-up, or generic values for these fields. You should only put information in these fields if it is real and accurate, otherwise, Google may ban you.

White-label or custom-made items

If the products are white-label, vintage, custom-made, or manufactured by you, then just set brand to your company name and map MPN to your Yahoo 'Code' field.

Request exceptions for disallowed items

If identifiers are not available for your products and Google disapproves the listings, then use Google's special form to request an exception.

Specify UPC codes as 12 digits

To avoid an invalid identifier warning, always specify UPC codes as 12 digits. There should not be any hyphens/dashes or spaces in the UPC code, and remember to include any leading zeros.

Use MPN and brand if UPC is not available

If there is no UPC code available for a product, leave it blank and specify the manufacturer part number (MPN) instead.

Use the complete Manufacturer Part Numbers

Short, two-character MPN values, such as "BQ", "25", "1-2", "K/4" may result in bad product category or data quality errors.

Use only one Manufacturer Part Number

If the MPN has multiple variations of hyphenation, spacing, or capitalization, only specify the official or most common one.

Looking up Identifiers

There are several ways to obtain the above information for your products.

• Find the item in Google Product Search and click the 'Compare Prices' button, then click the 'Details' link near the item title. (NOTE: If multiple identifiers are displayed separated by commas, like "CL1312, cl1312", then use only one of those identifiers.)
• Contact or check the website of the item manufacturer or your supplier
• Read it off the product packaging

Multiple UPC codes

If you have products with size/color variations, each with a different UPC code, you have numerous options with varying complexity.

1. Create a catalog field called 'upc' in your Yahoo Store catalog manager, and specify just one of the UPC codes in this field.
2. Create catalog fields called 'upc' and 'upc-multiple' in your Yahoo Store catalog manager, and specify just one of the UPC codes in 'upc', and all the UPC codes separated by commas in 'upc-multiple'. Google can accept comma-separated UPC codes, and for other shopping engines, you can use the single UPC code.
3. With an Advanced feed and some special programming, we can multiply your listings by each size/color option. Please contact us for a quote if you are interested in this method.

How do I configure free shipping for Google Product Search?

If all your products have free shipping, then you can configure this via your Google Merchant Account Tax and Shipping Settings. Simply create a flat-rate shipping rule, and set the price to zero.

Otherwise, if only certain items have free shipping, then configure your default shipping costs in the Google Merchant Account, and then override the shipping cost for individual items using the instructions below.

1. Add the following custom fields to your store: bing-shipping and google-shipping.
2. For 'bing-shipping', set it to '0' (without quotes) for items that qualify for free shipping, and leave the other items blank.
3. Edit the 'Shipping' field on the Define Fields page of the Bing feed, and set the Catalog Field Name to 'bing-shipping'.
4. For 'google-shipping', set it to 'US:::0.00' (without quotes) for items that qualify for free shipping.
5. Leave the field blank for all other items. For these items, the shipping cost will be based on the rules you set up in your Google Merchant Account.
6. Ensure that the 'shipping' field on the Define Fields page of the Google feed has the Catalog Field Name set to 'google-shipping'.
7. To set other shipping values for Google, please see the Google Product Search shipping attribute instructions. The Google shipping attribute is composed of country, region, service, and price. You can specify multiple shipping rules for a single product by separating each by commas.
8. Resubmit from our site after making all the changes.

Important Tips

• We recommend setting ship-weight to the actual ship weight of the items, as opposed to setting it to zero to trigger free shipping.
• One other thing you will need to do is log into your Google Merchant center account, and ensure that "Use Quoted Fields" setting is set to "No". Instructions for doing so are here: Google Feed Settings.

How do I set my store name in Google Product Search?

To change the way your store name is displayed in Google Shopping results, you must set it in your Google Merchant Center dashboard on the General Settings page

For other shopping engines, the store name is also set via the merchant account of the shopping engine. The "Store Name" setting in our system on the "Manage > Modify Setting" page is only for internal use, and does not affect anything in any search engine.

Why doesn't Google Product Search show all my results?

When you search in Google Product Search by your store name, you may or may not see all your products in the search results.

To do an accurate search, you should search by Account ID rather than store name. Your Account ID can be found in your Google Merchant Account Dashboard on the top-left of the page. (Account ID may also be known as accountid, sellerid, authorid, seller ID, or author ID.) Enter the URL as follows into your browser:

http://www.google.com/products?authorid=1234567

You can also use this form to run an AuthorID search in Google Product Search:

Google Account ID		(e.g. 1234567)

When it says "About X results" under the search box, this is an approximation and may not reflect the actual number of results in the shopping results. However, if you navigate to the last page of results, you may see a more accurate count.

Note that the count may vary by your geographical location and may vary over time as Google's search index is distributed and updated over time.

The only correct way to see your searchable items is to log into your Google Merchant Account Dashboard, go to the Products tab, and select the "Status" as "Searchable". Note that the item count here is also an estimate, and you can only see accurate item counts on the "Data Feeds" tab.

Configuring Sale Price for Google Product Search

By default, our Google feeds submit the sale-price as the price, and this works for almost all customers since they generally do not use sale-price for specials, but rather for the ordinary, day-to-day pricing. If you are interested in submitting true, advertised sale pricing, please read below.

When using the Google's sale_price attribute, Google has the following requirements:

• It is a requirement to display both the non-sale and sale prices on your product landing pages.
• The non-sale price is [required to be] different from the list price and must be a price you have previously sold the item for.
• Source: Google Products Feed Specifications, Submitting your sale information

If you use the sale-price for true, advertised specials, then you can configure your feed to submit the sale-price as described below. Note that this Google attribute is experimental, and it is not yet clear how exactly it is to be used and how it affects your listings in Google. Please use the instructions below only as a guideline.

1. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields
2. Click Edit next to the price field.
3. Enter regular (without quotes) as the Price Source and click Update.
4. Click Edit next to the sale_price field.
5. Enter sale (without quotes) as the Price Source and click Update.
6. Click Edit next to the sale_price_effective_date field.
7. Enter the name of a catalog field that contains this information, and click Update.
8. Resubmit the feed from Tasks > Submit a Task

Configuring the 'condition' attribute for Google feeds.

By default, our feed sets all items to have the 'new' 'condition' value. If the 'condition' of your items varies, then follow these instructions.

1. Add a custom field to your Yahoo Store Catalog Manager called 'google-condition' with a default value of 'new'.
2. Set any items as 'refurbished' or 'used' as needed.
3. On our site, go to "Manage Feed > Define Fields > Edit 'condition'".
4. Enter 'google-condition' in the 'Catalog Field Name' box, and then save the settings.
5. Run a Refresh task, and then you can review the changes in the product list before running a submission.

You could use Yahoo's 'condition' field, but it may not allow the value 'refurbished'. Google only accepts 'refurbished', 'used', and 'new' as the condition.

Factors that affect ranking in Google Product Search

There are many factors that affect ranking, performance, or clicks that you get from Google Product Search. Listed below is not meant to be an exhaustive or accurate list. Google's algorithms are secret, and below is simply our best guess based on Google's recommendations and other Internet chatter.

Factors That You Control

• Product titles and descriptions
• Submitting all other, relevant product data
• Submission frequency (daily is best)
• Site uptime and load time
• Completeness and accuracy of the product data
• Following Google content policies
• Following Google quality guidelines
• Following Google editorial guidelines

Factors Out of Your Control

• Competition from other merchants
• Google's ranking algorithm, which is constantly being changed
• Customer demand for your products
• Customer demand for Google and Google Product Search
• How much Google promotes Product Search

How To Remove or Delete Listings from Google Product Search

Remove All Listings from Google Product Search

1. Go to the Data Feeds tab in your Google Merchant Center account.
2. Check the box next to the data feed file name.
3. Click the Delete selected button

Items can be restored by adding the data feed file back and resubmitting a feed.

Removing Individual Listings from Google Product Search

1. Go to the Products tab in your Google Merchant Center account.
2. Look up items by id using the search box, or page to the desired items
3. Check the boxes next to the items you wish to delete.
4. Click the Delete button

Items can be restored by resubmitting a feed containing the listings.

International Google Product Feeds to the UK and Other Countries

We can create a feed to UK and other countries provided you meet the Google Product Search listings country requirements. These are summarized below.

Google Product Search UK

• Products must be listed in English.
• Product landing pages must be in English.
• Product prices must be listed in pounds sterling (GBP), including all applicable taxes [e.g. VAT tax] and charges except shipping.
• Products must be shippable throughout the mainland UK. If you ship from outside the UK, your shop must cover all custom charges.

One option is to add a field to your store catalog that contains the pricing in the foreign currency. You would update this pricing daily and configure your store to display this pricing on your product pages. Then, our system would take this pricing and submit it to Google in the 'price' attribute. An Advanced feed may be required if you have special requirements.

Google Product Search Setup Guide

Step 1: How to create a Google Merchant Center account

1. Go to google.com/merchants and create a Google Merchant Center account.
2. If you have multiple stores, request a multi-client account so you can manage them all from a single Google account.
3. From the Settings > General tab, enter the Website URL of your store. If it does not say "Verified and Claimed", please see our Website Url Verification Tutorial for further instructions.
4. From the Data Feeds tab, click the New Data Feed button. Use the following settings:
   • Target country: USA
   • Data feed type: googlebase
   • Data feed filename: googlebase.txt
5. From the Data Feeds tab, click "Edit" next to googlebase.txt. Enter the settings below and click "Save Changes".
   • File format: Text
   • Encoding: UTF-8
   • Delimiter: Tab
   • Use quoted fields: No
6. From the FTP Settings tab, create your own FTP username and password. It may take 15 minutes before Google's FTP server recognizes a new FTP username/password.
7. Do not set up a schedule for the data feed (or leave it paused).

Step 2: How to Enable Yahoo Store Export

1. Log in to your Yahoo Store Manager, and click the Search Engines link.
2. Scroll down to the Enable Store Contents Export section, and select "Enabled" (or "Enable, but do not syndicate") for both objinfo.xml and catalog.xml export formats. Note the URLs labeled "Download:". These end in catalog.xml and objinfo.xml (not .dtd).
3. If your exports were disabled, then republish your store.

Step 3: Add a Data Feed for Google Product Search

1. Click the Register link above to create an account on Aten Software.
2. From My Account, click the Add Feed button.
3. Enter a store name, and create a new “Basic” feed using the “Google Product Search” template.
4. After the feed is created, continue on to the Modify Settings page.
5. On this page, enter the objinfo.xml (and optional catalog.xml) URL, file name, and FTP settings you configured in the previous steps.
6. (Optional) After saving those settings, go to "Manage > Define Fields". Review the Data Feed Optimization for Google Base page for setup tips.

Step 4: Test your Google Feed Settings

1. Log into Aten Software and click Manage for your Google feed.
2. Use the Test Feed Settings link to test your URLs and FTP settings. NOTE: It takes about 15 minutes before Google's FTP server recognizes a new FTP username/password.
3. Under Submit a Task, click the Refresh button.
4. Go to the Product List, and review some product details to ensure that everything imported correctly.

Step 5: Submit your Google Feed

1. Under Submit a Task, choose the Submit task.
2. Log into Google Base and check the status of the data feed.
3. Google typically processes your file within minutes, but it may take longer. It then takes about 24 hours for the items to become searchable in Google Product Search. There may be additional lag time before image thumbnails appear.

Step 6: Schedule your Google Feed

1. On our site, go to the Modify Feed page for your Google feed, and select a desired update frequency. We also recommend to disable Auto-Skip, because Google demotes listings that are not updated frequently.
2. You can optionally configure an alert from the Manage Alerts page.
3. Add funds to your account from the Purchase Credit page to ensure continuous service.

Image Hosting Service

What is the image hosting service for Yahoo Stores?

Our image hosting service solves the problem of missing images caused by out-of-date image URLs. As you may know, Yahoo Stores change the image URL every time your store is published. With daily feed updates, this is generally not a problem.

For those who publish very frequently or have other special feed requirements, image hosting provides a stable, unchanging image URL for each product. This URL redirects to the latest, up-to-date image on your Yahoo Store.

Copies of your images are not stored on our servers. For this reason, our image hosting service can not function as a backup service. However, by using redirects, our service leverages Yahoo's high-availability, load-balanced, unlimited bandwidth image servers. The refresh rate is also faster because the images are never copied to our servers. Best of all, since we do not have to maintain image hosting resources, we can offer this service for no extra charge.

How does image hosting work?

The system maintains static image URLs for each product with the following format:

http://ih.atensoftware.com/FeedId/OfferId.jpg

Our system actually ignores the file extension, so ending the URL with .gif, .png, etc will still redirect to the same image hosted at Yahoo. Image hosting data is refreshed every half an hour, ensuring that your new images will be accessible at the static URLs within half an hour after you republish your store.

What effect does image hosting have on ranking in Google?

If you publish your site frequently (more than once per day), then enabling image hosting may have a positive effect on your ranking in Google. Google appears to penalize listings when the image is not found. Since Google updates images throughout the day, some images would not be found between the time when you publish your site and the next, nightly data feed update. By enabling image hosting, image URLs will be static, and there will only be about half an hour of downtime should you re-publish your store.

The first time you enable image hosting, you may notice a temporary negative effect on your ranking, but that should clear up within two to four days as Google re-indexes your items. Note that Google's ranking algorithms are secret and change all the time, so the above statements regarding Google's ranking methodology are educated guesses.

How do I enable image hosting for my data feed?

Image hosting can be enabled from "Manage Feed > Advanced Settings", and is independent of update frequency. It may take up to half an hour for the hosted image URLs to become active. You can enable or disable image hosting on a per-feed basis.

How much does image hosting cost?

Image hosting services are provided for no extra charge.

PriceGrabber Setup Guide

Step 1: Add a PriceGrabber Data Feed

The instructions below explain how to set up a PriceGrabber data feed in our system.

1. If you have a Yahoo Store, login to your Yahoo Store Manager and navigate to "Search Engines > Store Export" settings. Set both objinfo.xml and catalog.xml files to "Enabled, but do not syndicate" and save the settings. (This will turn off the automatic submission to PriceGrabber, which can be problematic.)
2. In our system, click "My Account > Add Feed" and select the PriceGrabber template.
3. On the Modify Feed page, enter the Export URLs and FTP Username/Password. You can leave the FTP Server and File Name the same. The FTP UserName/Password is the same as your PriceGrabber registration username and password.

Step 2: Configure and Optimize a PriceGrabber Data Feed

Pricegrabber requires that you specify the full, three-level category for every item, otherwise your feed will not be accepted.

Example:   Appliances > Laundry > Dryers

Go to the PriceGrabber category list and rate card and click the Export Rates button to get a spreadsheet of all the categories. For additional instructions, please see the PriceGrabber General Feed Requirements. Once you have found the categories for your products, you can configure your feed as follows:

1. In our system, go to the "Manage > Define Fields" page for your PriceGrabber feed.
2. Click 'Edit' next to the 'Categorization' field.
3. Set 'Catalog Field Name' to 'pg-category' and enter the default category in the 'Default Value' box.
4. If you want to specify item-specific categories, add a custom field to your store catalog called 'pg-category' and populate it with the values.
5. For further optimization, supply default values and/or catalog field names for the other fields of your data feed.

Step 3: Set up a PriceGrabber Merchant Account

1. Generate and download a data feed file from our system.
2. If your feed file is large, open it in a text editor and remove lines from the end to make the file less than 8Mb.
3. Log into your PriceGrabber merchant account.
4. Go to "Your Account > Feed Format" and make the following selections:
5. Do you have a product feed - Yes
6. Is the feed visible from a website / URL - No
7. Is your complete feed larger than 8Mb - Yes/Maybe
8. Enter the file name as it is set up on the Modify Feed page.
9. Browse to the feed file you downloaded and click the upload button.
10. You may see "We couldn't identify this data". If so, then select MSRP for column 18 and leave the others undefined.
11. Click Save Changes
12. Contact your account representative to let them know you have modified your feed settings.

Troubleshooting a PriceGrabber Data Feed

If PriceGrabber is not listing your products, please try the following steps.

1. In our site, go to "My Account > Manage Feed > View Results", and check if the feed is being submitted successfully. If you see "success", then our system is successfully uploading the feed file to PriceGrabber's FTP server. They may still have problems processing the feed.
2. Check if your PriceGrabber merchant account is set up according to these instructions: How do I set up my PriceGrabber merchant account?
3. Contact your PriceGrabber representative and ask them if they are processing the file you are uploading by FTP, and not any files received from Yahoo. Also ask them if there are any issues with the file.

Product Count Monitoring for Google Shopping

What is the Google Shopping product count monitoring service?

The product count monitoring service allows you to monitor the number of products you have listed in Google Product Search. This provides you with some security that your listings are active and searchable in actual Google Shopping results.

The service can be configured to notify you when your product count goes below a certain threshold. You can customize this threshold as well as the frequency of the checks.

What is the cost of the product count monitoring service?

The alert service costs $0.05 for each check. It can be scheduled to run daily, tri-weekly, weekly, or monthly.

Is monitoring available for searches other than product counts?

Currently, only product count searches for a particular authorid/Google Account ID are supported. Please contact us if you would like to monitor product counts for other search terms.

Can I download the product count monitoring results/history?

Yes, you can download the product counts going back up to three years in comma-separated values (CSV) format.

Resolving Google Merchant Center Errors

Why do my product titles contain the category name prefixed to the title?

You need to turn off the compound-name variable in your Yahoo Store's Store Properties.

1. Log into your Yahoo Store Manager and go to Store Editor
2. Click Contents in the tool bar
3. Click Variables in the tool bar
4. Expand the Store Properties section
5. Set Compound-name to No
6. Click the Update button and then publish your store

How do I contact Google Merchant Center?

You must use the online forms to contact Google Merchant Center, or reply to an existing support email. Be sure to search for answers online before contacting them, as their response time can be slow.

1. Contact Policy - links to contact forms
2. Support - help articles and documentation

I submitted my feed through your system, now what?

Check the status in your Google Base account. If it says "success", then they have successfully processed the feed.

I submitted my feed, but the status doesn't appear in Google Merchant Center.

It can take 24-72 hours for processing status to appear in Google Merchant Center. Click here for more information.

Google Merchant Center status says "invalid file name", how do I fix this?

Set the filename property in your feed settings, and make sure this exactly matches the filename configured in your Google Merchant Center account.

I emailed Google Product Search Support, but have not heard from them.

Google Product Search technical support always replies, but it can take up to two weeks to receive a reply.

What does beta mean?

As of November 2009, Google Base and Product Search are still beta services. This means they have been made more widely available, but more problems and changes can be expected than from officially released services.

I received a Data Feed Error Notice but my FTP settings are correct.

If your FTP settings were previously working, then you can generally ignore the emailed notice about the failed FTP attempt. The FTP servers are relatively unreliable, and often will fail to accept a login even though a correct user name and password are supplied. Our automated system makes multiple attempts when it encounters an FTP error. Our system will email you if all the attempts fail. This is a relatively common occurrence with all the shopping engines.

To view the historical results of processing tasks, just go to "Manage Feed > View Results". You can quickly spot one-time errors there. To test your FTP settings, simply click the "Manage Feed > Test Feed Settings" link. If you see "success", then the error was a temporary one and can be ignored.

Generally, you can ignore the error and simply let the system retry on the next scheduled submission. However, if you want to refresh your product listings immediately, just resubmit your data feed manually.

How do I view the status of my data feed in Google Merchant Center?

There are three places in your Google merchant account where you can find errors and warnings for your data feed.

Errors and Warnings

1. Log in to Google Merchant Center and click on the Data Feeds tab
2. Click on the View Errors link in the Status column, if available.
3. On the Feed Status Summary page, click on the Download Feed Errors link, if available.

Item errors and warnings are updated typically within a few minutes of running a submission to upload the data feed file.

Disapproved Items

1. Click on the Products tab
2. Select Inactive from the Status drop-down to see any disapproved items
3. Click on an item and scroll to the bottom to see the reason for disapproval.

Disapproval status is typically updated within a few hours of running a submission.

Data Quality

Click on the Data Quality tab to see additional warnings and errors.

The Data Quality analysis is automatically updated by Google once every 24 to 48 hours. Check the last analysis run date to see when it was last updated.

How do I resolve an "Error: Missing Attributes" message from Google Base?

You may see one of the following errors from Google Base, which may cause some or all of your products to not be processed.

• The item is missing a required attribute.
• We were unable to match the attributes in this dsv (delimiter separated values) data feed line to the corresponding attributes in the header (first) row.
• You must enter an item title. *Title* is a required attribute.
• Product name missing
• We didn't understand the header (first) row of your file. Please make sure you're using valid attribute names.

To resolve these errors, please check the settings in your Google Base account as described in this support question.

How do I configure the shipping 'weight' attribute?

1. Go to the 'Manage Feed > Define Fields' page for the feed.
2. Click 'Edit' next to the 'weight' field.
3. Enter a "Default Value", which will apply to all products. Leave blank if not applicable.
4. Enter the name of the shipping weight field in your Yahoo Store catalog in the "Catalog Field Name" box. This is almost always named "ship-weight".
5. Save the settings and run a Submit task to update your listings. You can also review the Product List of the feed to make sure the weights are being retrieved properly.

If you have a legacy store, you can upgrade to an Advanced feed and then add the weight from the objinfo.xml file. Please contact us if you need this to be done.

What do I do if there is no status (or 'None') in Google Merchant Center?

You may encounter a problem where our system shows a successful submission, but you do not see any items uploaded in your Google Merchant Center account. It may say "None" under the "Last upload date & status" column in your Google Merchant Center account. If you see "Success" on our site, it only means that our system successfully uploaded the data feed file to them, not that they have processed the file.

To resolve this, check that the file name is exactly the same in both our site and in Google. The file name must end in .txt and it is case-sensitive. Also, remember that Google may take 24-72 hours to display the status of a recently uploaded file. If more than that time period elapses, you can contact Google.

What do I do if there I get an email saying "Data feed upload failure"?

You may occasionally receive an email from Google Base with subject, Google Base data feed file status on "file.txt": Data feed upload failure. You receive it even though you have not changed any feed settings and your feed has been working correctly. In your Google Base dashboard, you will see the following status message:

Outcome: Data feed upload failed. No items are live.   help
Number of items processed:              0
Number of inserted items:               0
Uploaded at:  Oct 19, 2008 1:40 am PDT
Processed at: Oct 19, 2008 10:11 am PDT

There would be no further details on the error message, and our system would show 'success' in the task history. This problem is usually due to a system error at Google Base. To resolve the issue, you simply have to resubmit your feed from your account.

For further information, you can view the following post in the 'Google Groups - Submitting Data Forum': Data Feed Upload Failure.

What do I do if I can't find my products in my Google Merchant Center account?

Please check the status of your data feed in your Google Merchant Center account first. It would be most helpful if you can send us a screen shot or the detailed, line-by-line error messages.

How do I resolve "No items inserted" or "Internal error" emails?

Google may send you an email saying "No Items Inserted" or "Internal error, feed was not fully processed" for your data feed. This error is usually spurious and can be ignored. You have several options:

• Ignore the error and wait for your next scheduled submission
• Resubmit the feed manually
• Contact Google to notify them and obtain clarification

You can also check the Google Merchant Center Forum to see if others are experiencing the same problem. If you continue to receive the same error email multiple times, contact us and we can check on your feed.

----- Sample Message ---- From: googlebase-noreply@google.com To: info@store.yahoo.com Sent: Thu, November 10, 2009 8:02:31 AM Subject: Google Merchant Center data feed file status on "googlebase.txt": 0 of 1999 items inserted or Internal error, feed not fully processed or No items inserted 0 of 1999 items inserted or Internal error, feed not fully processed or No items inserted Uploaded at: November 10, 2009 2:28:42 AM PST Processed at: November 10, 2009 3:52:36 AM PST For more details on the status of your data feed, go to http://www.google.com/merchants/showfeedsummary?fid=111111 This is a computer-generated email. Please do not reply. You can change your notification settings at http://www.google.com/merchants/basicsettings

Recreate or rename your data feed file in Google Merchant Center.

Below is the procedure to recreate your data feed file in your Google Merchant Center account. You may need to do this if you are experiencing strange errors in your Google account, especially if your data feed file was registered a long time ago. This does not resolve all issues, and it is best to contact Google regarding the error in addition to attempting this procedure.

1. Go to the Data Feeds tab in your Google Merchant Center account.
2. Click the "New Data Feed" button. Leave the default settings, enter a different file name ending in ".txt", and click "Save Changes".
3. Log into our site and go to "Manage > Modify Settings" for your feed.
4. Update the file name to the new file name, then click "Update".
5. Click on "Manage > Submit a Task".
6. Click the Submit button to submit the feed manually.
7. After the submission completes, refresh the Data Feeds tab in your Google account. It should show a status of 'processing...' within an hour or so.
8. Once you see the items processed successfully, then check the box next to old data feed file, then click the "Delete selected" button.

Problem: Submission is successful, but Google doesn't recognize feed

You can view your task results on the "Manage Feed > View Results" page for each data feed. If the task shows a successful submission, that means our server was able to upload the file via FTP to Google's FTP server. It does not mean Google has processed, or will ever process, the file.

If your Google Merchant Center Data Feeds page does not show that the feed is processing within an hour or so, check the following settings:

1. Check that the file name you have specified on the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page exactly matches the file name on the Google Merchant Center Data Feeds page. The file name is case-sensitive.
2. Check that the FTP Username and Password you have specified on the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page exactly matches what you have set on the Google Merchant Center FTP Settings page. Both username and password are also case-sensitive.
3. Make sure you are logged into the correct Google account. Also, if you have a multi-client account with Google, make sure you are checking the settings for the correct sub-account.
4. Check if Google is having any known feed processing issues on their Announcements and Known Issues forum.

Can you help if my feed was disapproved by Google?

If Google disapproves your data feed, you will see "Disapproved" as the status in your Google Merchant Center on Data Feeds tab. When you expand the details, it will say, "Your data feed has been disapproved because some or all of your items are not complying with our Program Policies."

Unfortunately, we can not provide any support for disapproved feeds. This issue is between the merchant and Google, and there is nothing we can do about it. We do not have any knowledge of, and can not advise on a workaround. We do not have an 'inside' contact at Google. Creating a new Google account and resubmitting does not work, and is not recommended. The only assistance we can offer is to provide the self-help links below.

• Carefully review Google Product Search Program Policies
• Contact Google using the Contact Form for Disapproved Feeds
• Post your issue in the Google Merchants Help Forum.

A common cause of disapproval is non-compliance with the policy regarding Affiliates, cataloged drop-shipping programs, and multi-level marketing. See the program policies for more details.

Shareasale Data Feed

How do I set up a Share-A-Sale data feed?

1. From "My Account > Add Feed", create a Share-A-Sale feed for your Yahoo Store and configure the settings. Leave the FTP Username, Password, and Server at their default values for now.
2. From "Manage > Define Fields", edit the Merchant ID field and enter your ShareASale Merchant ID in the "Value" box. You can obtain your Merchant ID by logging into your ShareASale account and looking in the header of the page.
3. Next, edit the Category and Sub-category fields (not Merchant Category). Look up the appropriate number from the ShareASale data feed file format specification, and enter it in the "Default Value" box. You must supply both the category number and sub-category number.
   For example:
   Category: DefaultValue = 6, CatalogField = blank
   Subcategory: DefaultValue = 47, CatalogField = blank
4. If you have multiple categories of products, add a custom field to your Yahoo Store Catalog Manager and populate it with the category numbers. Enter the name of this custom field in the "Catalog Field" box.

How do I set up my Share-A-Sale merchant account?

1. Once you have configured your data feed in our system, generate the data feed file from the "Manage > Download Data Feed File" page.
2. Download the file and upload it manually via your ShareASale account's "Product Database Management" menu option. (You only have to do this the first time.)
3. Once that is done, you need to email ShareASale the following message:

   I have uploaded my first data feed file for your review. I would like to receive instructions on uploading the file via FTP upload. The server from which the file will be uploaded has an IP address of 76.75.210.45.

4. You will receive an email with an FTP Username and Password. Enter those and set an update frequency in the "Manage > Modify Settings" page of our site. ShareASale now support up to Daily submissions.
5. Go to "Manage > Advanced Settings" and set the FTP Initial Directory to the directory emailed to you by ShareASale. Note that Image Hosting is enabled, and is highly recommended for ShareASale data feeds.
6. Run a Submission to test that the settings are working correctly.

Shopping.com Data Feed

Shopping.com can read my product listings directly. What is the advantage of using your feed service?

• You can exclude low-margin products from submission to save on unwanted clicks.
• Our system can properly map your Yahoo Store catalog data to Shopping.com's extensive attribute list. Properly submitting the recommended data may result in improved ranking.
• Use our Advanced feeds to customize the output from your Yahoo Store.
• You can rely on our technical support in case of any problems.

How do I set up my Shopping.com merchant account?

1. Open a merchant account at Shopping.com
2. Navigate to Products > Submit Datafeed.
3. Under Tell Us About Your Datafeed File, select Select one.
4. Define your shipping rates and tax rates as needed.
5. Under 5. Submit Your Datafeed File, select Upload to a Shopping.com FTP location.
6. In the Enter the file name for your datafeed file box, enter shopping.zip
7. Copy the FTP username and password into the Manage Feed > Modify Feed Settings in your Aten Software account.
8. Run a Submit task to send your feed to Shopping.com
9. Click Almost there! Map datafeed columns
10. On the Review your datafeed file column conversions page, just click Continue. (The fields should be mapped automatically.)
11. Navigate to Products > Product Listings after some time to see the status of the listings.
12. We also recommend that you subscribe to the Shopping.com optimization report.

How do I optimize my Shopping.com data feed?

Make sure your products are properly categorized by following our instructions on setting the Category ID (in this topic).

To keep CPC costs low, you can use product filters to filter out non-performing items, or items under a certain price. As an example, you can filter out a product if it does not yield any sales within 50 clicks.

Review the Shopping.com data feed specifications, and submit any additional attributes as recommended by them.

Recommended Attributes for Optimization, Source: Shopping.com

How do I set the Category ID for my Shopping.com data feed?

For Shopping.com categorization, we recommend that you add a field to your Yahoo Store called "shopping-category-id". Then, populate it with the appropriate category from the Shopping.com Taxonomy. You should select the single Category ID of the most specific category that applies to the product. For example, you would enter "419" for a telephone, which would place it in the "Electronics > Communications > Phones" sub-category.

Our shopping.com template is already configured to map this field from your Yahoo Store, otherwise, you can change the field name by going to "Manage > Define Fields". The automatic/manual categorization provided in your Shopping.com merchant account is usually not as reliable as this method.

Why don't my prices or shipping costs display correctly on Shopping.com?

Shopping.com displays prices based on the location that is entered by the user browsing the site (signed-in or not). In some states, the price may include sales tax, and shipping may be calculated based on the user's location.

How to I remap my feed in Shopping.com?

After adding or removing fields in you Shopping.com data feed, you must remap the columns in your Shopping.com Merchant Account in order for them to recognize the changes. This is very simple to do. Just follow the step-by-step instructions below.

1. Log into our system and resubmit your feed.
2. Log into your Shopping.com Merchant Account
3. Click on the Products tab
4. Click on the Submit Datafeed sub-tab
5. Click on the Almost there! Map datafeed columns button at the bottom of the page
6. On the field mapping page, scroll down to the Format field and select Custom from the drop-down box.
7. All other fields should be pre-configured, so just click the Continue button on the bottom of the page
8. You should see a message saying Your changes have been saved. This completes the procedure.

Reference: How do I upload my product feed file? in Shopping.com Merchant Support.

Shopzilla.com Data Feed

How do I set up a Shopzilla data feed?

Please contact us for assistance.

How do I set the Shopzilla Category ID?

1. Log into your Shopzilla Merchant Account.
2. Open the "Shopzilla Shopping Categories" under "Manage Listings > Specifications & Guidelines"
3. Note the Category ID that applies to your products.
4. Log into our system and go to "My Account"
5. Go to "Manage > Define Fields"
6. Click "Edit" next to the "Category ID" field.
7. Enter your Category ID in the "Default Value" box, and click "Update".
8. Run a submission and check your Shopzilla account.

To set up product-specific category IDs, look for instructions on adding custom fields in our online help.

Do I need your service to upload my data feed to Shopzilla?

No, Shopzilla has an option to import your the XML Export of your Yahoo Store automatically, but you may obtain better results by using our system.

Our system submits in Shopzilla's Standard Submission format. Shopzilla recommends this format for the following reasons:

• "You can update & resubmit your listings through FTP as regularly as you like."
• "You can specify the precise category on Shopzilla's site where you want your listings to appear, thus ensuring that your listings are properly categorized."

Furthermore, our system will allow you to correctly map the Manufacturer and UPC fields to your respective catalog fields. Regarding UPC codes, Shopzilla says, "Providing your product's UPC number is one of the single most effective techniques to ensure an optimal display of your product listings in our search results."

System Questions

How reliable is this service?

Our submission technology has been running continuously since early 2003, just after Froogle's inception in late 2002. We process millions of listings each day. Submissions run every morning and throughout the day as product information changes. Our system is available 24/7 to process data feed submissions on-demand. Our secure, dedicated hosting is provided by Pair Networks.

Does your system support any shopping cart/e-commerce platforms besides Yahoo Store?

We currently only support the following platforms:

• Yahoo Stores, legacy and Pro (aka Yahoo Merchant Solutions ecommerce software)
• AspDotNetStorefront
• Magento Commerce

We are planning to support more platforms in the future. If you are interested in another platform, please let us know using the contact link below. This will help us gauge interest and plan which platforms to support.

We have limited support for integration via a Text/CSV file of your product data hosted on your website. Please refer to our Integration Guide for information on how to connect to our platform. There may be additional setup charges for non-standard platforms.

What shopping price comparison engines does your system submit to?

We now support a multitude of engines and can easily support more. Please see Comparison Shopping Engine Data Feeds Available for a list of supported engines.

Does your system support legacy Yahoo stores?

Yes, we fully support legacy stores. Just supply the objinfo.xml URL and leave the catalog.xml field blank when you set up your feed. Our system even supports a workaround so that you can create custom attributes for your legacy store.

How do I set up my NexTag merchant account?

1. Login to your NexTag Merchant Account.
2. Make sure all applicable information is filled out in the links under Account Management.
3. Under Product Listings, click on Select How to Add Products. If that link is not available, click on Set Listing Options.
4. Click the Advanced tab.
5. Select NexTag as the file format.
6. Select I will FTP my file to Nextag.
7. Open a new browser window or tab and go to the Manage Feed > Modify Settings page on our site.
8. Copy the FTP Username and FTP Password from Nextag. Leave the FTP Server as upload.nextag.com and click Update.
9. Go to Manage Feed > Submit a Task and click Submit.
10. Return to the Nextag site and click Upload Products to save the settings.
11. Click on Product Listings > Format Your Product File
12. Make sure each Nextag Column Name matches the Product File Header below it, and then click Save Changes.
13. Click Account Summary in the top-right of the page after saving the changes.
14. Check the Product Listings > Product File Quality page for the upload status in 24 to 48 hours.

If you get permission denied errors, then you may need to enter the FTP Initial Directory, usually like /private/clientid, in the Manage Feed > Advanced Settings page.

Setting up your Nextag Data Feed

1. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields page for your feed in our system.
2. Click Edit next to the Category: NexTag Numeric ID field.
3. Look up the appropriate category code from Nextag: Category IDs.
4. Enter the category code, e.g. 300222, in the Default Value box. Click Update to save the settings.
5. Run a Refresh task and then review the product list to make sure the product data looks correct. Then run a Submit task to submit the products to Nextag.

Viewing your Nextag Listings

To view your live listings in Nextag, enter your Nextag Merchant ID below and press Enter.

Nextag Merchant ID:

How do I set up a Pronto data feed?

1. Go to My Account > Add Feed and enter your store name and select the Pronto template.
2. Go to Manage Feed > Modify Settings and enter your store export URLs.
3. Copy the FTP username/password from your Pronto Merchant Account Product Listings tab.
4. Click Update to save the settings.
5. Look up the most appropriate category for your items in the Pronto Category Mapping.
6. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields and click edit for the Pronto Category ID field.
7. Enter the Pronto Category ID (e.g. 375) in the Default Value box and click Update.
8. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields and click edit for the Category field.
9. Enter the Pronto Category Name (e.g. Car Seats) in the Default Value box and click Update.
10. Run a Submit task.
11. Check your Pronto Product Listings page for the Error Report.

If you have multiple categories of products, please add fields to your product catalog for the pronto-category-id and pronto-category and fill those in with your categories. Then, specify the field names in the Define Fields page for your feed.

Can you submit my eBay listings to Google Product Search?

Google no longer accepts eBay product listings directly from eBay sellers. You must rely on the automatic data feed provided by eBay, which you can sign up for with the eBay export listings program.

Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

For items in the Apparel and Accessories category, you will be required to submit the following information:

• gender - 'male', 'female', or 'unisex' are the only allowed values
• age_group - 'adult' and 'kids' are the only allowed values
• color - must be the dominant color of the pictured item
• size - required for Clothing and Shoes sub-categories only
• material - if applicable
• pattern - if applicable
• image_link - the image must be of the specific color, material, and pattern (the specific size is recommended too)
• brand - required unless item is custom-made
• google_product_category - required (providing only the top-level category is okay, as long as you differentiate between Shoes and Clothing at a minimum)

See the following Google support articles for more information:

• Submitting Apparel Products
• Summary of Attribute Requirements
• Google Products Feed Specification

In order to meet these requirements, you have two options:

A. Submit Only One Variant for Each Product

You will need to add fields to your Yahoo Store catalog for color, size, material, pattern, gender, and age_group, or define default values on your Define Fields page. We will also create a way to submit the first color and/or size option value. In that case, just make sure the main product image coincides with the first size/color option.

B. Submit All Variants of the Product

We have the capability to submit all variations of your items based on supplemental data you provide to us. This service requires an Advanced feed and there is a setup fee of $299. For more information, please refer to our Product Feed Multiplication Service.

Please consider our Data Feed Optimization Service for Apparel Merchants for $79. This one-time, flat-rate service, includes a review of your store data, configuration of your data feed, and a customized optimization report that includes a strategy for meeting the new requirements.

Do you support Amazon data feeds?

We do support data feeds to Amazon. Please be aware that Amazon has three different programs through which you may submit your item listings:

• Amazon Product Ads - Allows you to post your product listings as pay-per-click ads on Amazon's main website.
• Selling on Amazon (Amazon Marketplace) - Allows you to sell your items directly on Amazon's main website.
• Amazon WebStore - Allows you to create a full e-commerce store with your own domain name, akin to a Yahoo Store.

We provide a Basic data feed for Amazon Product ads. This is easy to set up and works like all of our other data feeds.

Amazon Marketplace / Selling on Amazon

The "Selling on Amazon" data feed requirements are very complex, and Amazon requires that you have UPC codes for every product. Furthermore, Amazon requires a special product type and item type to be assigned to each item. If your items do not already exist in Amazon, typically, you would need to submit detailed product listings and for approval by Amazon. Please contact Amazon for requirements for your category.

You would need to study the Amazon data feed specifications (Item Classification Guide (ICG)) for your product category, and provide us with the mapping from your Yahoo Store catalog to the Amazon fields. We can provide a quote to assist you with this step.

Amazon's "Selling on Amazon" program does not accept data feeds via FTP upload, so our system can not automatically submit the feed. Our system can automatically keep your data feed file updated though, and then you can easily download it and then upload it to Amazon. You can automate the upload/download using a browser add-on such as iMacros for Firefox.

How do I set up Amazon Product Ads?

1. Go to My Account > Add Feed on our site
2. Enter the store name, select the Amazon Product Ads Template, and click Create Feed
3. Continue to the Modify Feed Settings page and fill in the Source settings as instructed
4. Open a new browser window and log into Amazon Seller Central
5. Go to Products > Upload Products
6. If the Upload Options drop-down is set to Sync Your Yahoo! Store, then follow these steps to disable it:
   1. Click Edit in the Sync Your Yahoo! Store section
   2. Select the Inactive radio button and click Update
7. Go to Products > Use FTP
8. Click the Generate Credentials link if necessary
9. File type should be set to Product Ads tab-delimited file (.txt)
10. Copy the FTP username/password to the Modify Feed Settings page in our system
11. Run a Submission task from our site

You can find the status of recent data feed uploads in your Amazon Seller Account under the Products > Upload Product Ads tab. There will be a section called View Processing Report, from where you can download the reports and view them in notepad to see any errors. You can also find a current product status report under Products > Download Product Report.

If you need information about or assistance with Amazon Product Ads, please contact Amazon Seller Support (login required) for 24/7 support via email and click to call.

Why am I receiving Low Credit Notice emails?

Once your credit balance goes below the notice threshold in your profile (default $5.00), our system emails you periodically to add credit to your account. Once you add credit, the notices will stop being sent.

If you would like to stop receiving reminders without adding credit, change your account status to "Inactive" from the change account status page. You can reactivate your account from the same page in the future.

Accounts are automatically deactivated after 180 days.

To change your low balance notice threshold, simply edit your profile.

Do you support automated monthly billing?

Unfortunately, at this time, we do not support automated monthly billing. Instead, our system will email you Low Credit Notices once your balance becomes low. Just click the link in the email to add funds to your account. You can configure the low credit notice threshold from your profile.

How do I set up feeds to the shopping engines?

Below is an overview of the steps required to set up data feeds to the various shopping engines.

1. Check our Supported Feeds page to see if we support the shopping engine.
2. Click the 'Merchants' link there, and sign up for a merchant account with the shopping engine. (Please contact us if we do not support a particular site.)
3. You may have to make a minimum purchase or meet other requirements of the shopping engine.
4. Once your merchant account is approved, check our Support page for feed setup instructions for the engine, if available.
5. Add the feed to your Aten account from 'My Account > Add Feed', configure any fields as needed, and then run your first submission.
6. Contact the shopping engine or check your merchant account dashboard to see if the feed was processed correctly.

If you get stuck on any step, feel free to contact us. If you would like optimization/set-up assistance, you can submit an Express Setup Request, and we take care of the feed setup. You would still be responsible for obtaining the merchant account, configuring your merchant account, managing bids, etc.

How do I setup my Become.com Merchant account?

1. Login to your Become.com Merchant Account and go to the Product Listings tab.
2. Select ‘Option1 : Feed upload’.
3. Specify the IP address as: 76.75.210.45
4. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom.
5. Note the FTP username and password.

1. Login to our site and add a feed using the Become.com template.
2. Copy the FTP username/password into the settings.
3. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields page.
4. Click Edit for the Category field.
5. Enter the appropriate category for your products from the Become.com CPC Rate Card as the Default Value and click Update.
6. Define any other fields as needed.
7. Submit your feed.

How do I set up a GoShopping data feed?

NOTE: Unlike most shopping engines, GoShopping does not accept files via FTP. Instead, they pull the data feed file from our website via a special data feed file URL.

Create GoShopping Merchant Account

1. Visit GoShopping.com and register for a Merchant account.
2. Wait for GoShopping to approve your account.
3. Login to your GoShopping Merchant account and use the provided code to add a logo to your Yahoo Store home page.

Set up Data Feed

1. Login to our site and add a feed using the GoShopping template.
2. Enter the objinfo.xml URL and optionally, the catalog.xml URL.
3. Leave the FTP settings blank
4. Click 'Update' to save the settings.
5. Go to "Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File".
6. Select the "File URL" setting and copy it for later use.
7. Use the link to generate a data feed file if it does not exist.
8. Login to your GoShopping Merchant account and go to the "Products" tab.
9. Paste the File URL in the "Enter your feed file URL" box, and click "Add Feed File" button.
10. You should see a green message asking you to allow 12 hours for the feed to be approved.

Verify Approval

1. After 12-24 hours, log back into your GoShopping Merchant account
2. Go to the "Products" tab.
3. Check the "Products Status" section to see if the products are approved.
4. Allow several additional days for all products and images to appears in search results.
5. If your products are not approved, please contact GoShopping for assistance.

How do I set up a Commission Junction (CJ.com) data feed?

1. To set up your Commission Junction feed, you will first need to gather the following three numeric identifiers from your Commission Junction publisher account.

   CID - Account number (ID - CID) with Commission Junction

   In the top-right corner of your CJ account, next to the "Account:" label.

   SUBID - Subscription ID for transfer

   Go to the "Account > Services" page of your CJ account. Look for the "Import" service of type "Product Catalog", and find the ID number in the "Name (ID)" column.

   AID - Product Catalog Ad ID number

   Go to the "Manage Links > Links" page of your CJ account. Look in the "Link ID" column of the "Product Catalog" type link.

2. Go to "My Account > Add Feed"
3. Enter your store name, select the Commission Junction Template, and click 'Create Feed'
4. Continue to "Manage Feed > Modify Settings"
5. Enter your store export URLs and the CJ FTP username and password.
6. Click "Update" to save your settings.
7. Go to "Manage Feed > Advanced Settings"
8. In the "Extra Header" box, replace the three "12345" numbers with the actual identifiers from your Commission Junction account. Do not change anything else in the header.
9. Click "Update" to save your settings.
10. Click the Submit button from Manage Feed > Submit a Task
11. Check your e-mail in 1-6 hours to see if cj.com processed all the items.

Can I downgrade an Advanced feed to a Basic feed?

It is not possible to directly downgrade Advanced feeds due to the possible customizations they may have. However, you can simply add a new, Basic feed for that store and shopping engine. Configure this new feed based on the Advanced feed. Once you are done, you can delete the Advanced feed.

Can I backup, download, or export all my Yahoo store images?

Please use the following instructions to download, backup, or export all your Yahoo Store images to your computer.

First, configure your data feed.

1. From Manage Feed > Advanced Settings, set Image Hosting to Enabled.
2. Wait approximately 30 minutes for your image hosting data to be loaded.

Next, prepare a folder and download the images.

1. Create a new folder on your computer, e.g. images.
2. Open the URL http://ih.atensoftware.com/12345/download-images.bat in your web browser. Replace 12345 with your FeedId, which can be found in your browser's address bar when you click on the Manage Feed page.
3. Use your browser's File > Save As function to save the file to your images folder.
4. Download wget.exe and save this file also in the images folder. This program is a free download tool for Windows.
5. Double-click the download-images.bat file, and the images will begin downloading.
6. If you receive a security warning, just click Run.

Caveats and Notes

• This will only download the primary image for items that are marked orderable and have a non-zero price.
• If you add or remove products, you have to download and run the latest version of the download-images.bat batch file.
• You must be using a computer with the Windows operating system.
• The batch file and wget.exe must be in the same directory. You can also copy wget.exe to your c:\windows\command folder, to make it globally available on your computer.
• You can stop and restart the batch file, and it will pick up where it left off. It will not re-download images if they already exist and they are up to date.

Batch Download Images using Wget

If you are comfortable with Access, SQL queries, or Excel, you can easily set up a batch file to download a large number of images from a website automatically with the wget.exe command line tool.

In your database or spreadsheet, just create a new field that generates output like this:

wget.exe -N -q -O widget-acme.jpg http://yimg.com/image11212
wget.exe -N -q -O foo-product.jpg http://yimg.com/image34324
wget.exe -N -q -O bar-product.jpg http://yimg.com/image56575

The above command downloads the URL and saves it with the specified file name in quiet mode. The -N switch tells it to skip the download if the file has already been downloaded and is up-to-date (based on time-stamping).

Next, copy and paste that column into notepad and save it with a .bat file extension.

Download wget.exe and put it in the same folder as the batch file.

Double-click the batch file to run it and wait for the images to download.

You can press Ctrl+C to cancel execution. Just double-click the batch file again to resume the downloads, and it will pick up where it left off.

If you run the batch file again after several weeks, only the images that have changed on the website since the last download will be re-downloaded, saving time.

See the following article for an an example: Can I backup, download, or export all my Yahoo store images?.

How do I set up a WholesaleCentral.com data feed?

We offer a WholesaleCentral.com data feed for your Yahoo Store. We recommend that you configure this feed to be uploaded daily to WholesaleCentral. Currently, WholesaleCentral requires you to log into their site and click a button for the feed to be processed. You will have to do this periodically, so we recommend that you bookmark the Submit Feed Page.

1. Sign into your WholesaleCentral Seller Account.
2. Click on the EZFeed link.
3. Click on "Register your store", select "Use non-Wholesalecentral.com store", and enter your store details.
4. Go back to the EZFeed page, click "FTP Account", and create an FTP username/password.
5. After you submit your first feed from our system, go to the EZFeed page again, click the Submit New Data Feed link, and click the "SUBMIT DATA FEED" button.

1. In our site, add a feed using the WholesaleCentral.com template.
2. Enter the necessary settings, including the FTP settings you defined above.
3. Run a submission from our site.
4. Check your Wholesalecentral account's 'Submit New Data Feed' page for the status of the submissions.
5. You must click the "SUBMIT DATA FEED" button on that page for the listings to go live.

What is the IP address of the server?

The IP address of our server is 76.75.210.45. This is the origin IP from which data feed files are be uploaded. A few shopping engines, such as ShareASale, require this IP address for restricting access to upload to their FTP server.

How is quantity pricing or minimum order quantity handled?

"For products bought in bulk quantities you must submit the total price for the minimum number of items sold." Source: Google Merchant Center, Google Product Search Policies : Price and Payments Policies.

This means that you can not submit the discounted price for a bulk quantity. You also can not submit the individual item price when there is a minimum quantity purchase requirement.

Our system always submits the sale price, or base price if there is no sale price, as entered into your Yahoo Store. If this price corresponds to the total price for the minimum purchase quantity, then submitting the sale/base price works fine. If the price corresponds to a single item price, and there is a minimum purchase requirement, then we can program the feed to multiply the price times the minimum purchase quantity.

Shoptab Categories and Facebook Shoptab Data Feed Setup

Our system can generate a Facebook Shoptab data feed from your Yahoo, Magento, or AspDotNetStorefront store. Follow the instructions below on how to set up your feed using our pre-configured template.

1. Log into our site and go to My Account > Add Feed, and choose the Shoptab Feed Template
2. Go to Manage Feed > Modify Settings and configure your objinfo/catalog.xml URLs. FTP settings should be left blank
3. Go to Manage Feed > Submit a Task and click Refresh
4. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File and copy the File URL.
5. Log into Facebook Shoptab Admin and click on the Data Feed tab.
6. Paste the File URL into the Url of file box under the Scheduled Updates section.
7. Add ?f=s.csv to the end of the URL. The final URL will look something like this:
   http://www.atensoftware.com/p400_12345.php?f=s.csv
8. Select daily as the Frequency and click the Schedule button.

At this point, you can either do a manual upload of the feed file downloaded from our site, or wait until Shoptab picks up the feed according to their schedule. Check your Shoptab Admin account My Products page to see if your products are listed.

Shoptab Categories Setup

By default, our system will use the merchant-category field from your Yahoo Store catalog as the Shoptab category. If you want to use a different field, follow these instructions:

1. Go to Manage Feed > Define Fields for your Shoptab feed
2. Click Edit for the category field
3. Enter the name of another catalog field, e.g. shoptab-category, into the Catalog Field Name box, and click Update
4. Go to Manage Feed > Submit a Task and click the Refresh button to refresh the feed.

Notes and Tips

For best results, we recommend short category names (less than ~20 characters) for your products, because the ShopTab will display the categories in a narrow, vertical menu bar. If you do not have an existing field with suitable categories, we suggest creating a custom field in your Yahoo Store Catalog Manager named shoptab-category.

Products in the feed will be sorted by ID and this is not configurable as of yet.

If you have a legacy store and want to supply categories, please refer to our legacy store custom fields article.

Image hosting is required for Facebook, and we provide this service free of charge. The hosted image URLs take about half an hour to become active. Image hosting will rewrite the URLs so that they all end in JPG. The URLs will be on ih.atensoftware.com, and will redirect to the actual images on your site. That will be sufficient for ShopTab.

The Facebook Shoptab feed is similar to, but not exactly the same as the Google Data Feeds. Shoptab may have issues if you try to submit a Google feed directly.

How do I define categories for Unbound Commerce feeds?

To set up your categories for UnboundCommerce mobile commerce data feeds, please use the examples below.

DESCRIPTION                     :   SAMPLE CATEGORY
Top-Level Category              :   Nike Shoes
Category and Sub-category       :   Shoes > Nike
Category and Sub-categories     :   Shoes > Nike > Slip-on
Multiple Categories             :   Nike Shoes|Running Shoes
Multiple Categories (example 2) :   Brands > Nike|Types > Running

Tips

• Use the '>' greater-than character to separate category levels.
• Use the '|' pipe character to separate multiple categories.
• Keep category names short to conserve space on the mobile screen.

Legacy Stores

If you have a legacy store, you can embed the category information in an HTML comment inside the Caption field of each product. Add the code shown below to the bottom of every Caption, and change the category as appropriate.

<!--
<uc-category>Brands &gt; Nike|Types &gt; Running</uc-category>
-->

Remember to replace the '>' greater-than character with '&gt;' to ensure that the HTML code remains valid. For more information, see How do I add custom attributes to a legacy Yahoo store?

Why do I see the message, "Store information no longer available"?

Sometimes, you may see the message, 'Store information no longer available', for one or more tasks in the "View Tasks" page. You will see this message when you have recently deleted a feed from your account. Deleting the feed deletes all the feed settings and results, but the task history will be preserved in your account. The tasks and messages will drop off the page after seven days.

ClixGalore Auto-Upload Settings

Use the instructions below to set up auto-upload of your ClixGalore data feed.

1. Log into your ClixGalore account.
2. Go to "Promotional Tools" > "Product Catalog Marketing / Upload Product Datafeed".
3. Click on the "schedule an auto upload" link.
4. Enter the following settings:

   File Source	HTTP
   Format:	clixGalore
   FTP Server / URL:	Look for this URL on the "Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File" page in our site. Add &format=.csv to the end of the URL.
   Ftp Username:	leave blank
   Ftp Password:	leave blank
   Ftp Directory:	leave blank
   Ftp Filename:	leave blank
   Load File At:	2 PM (GMT)
   Every:	3 days
   Starting From:	05/02/2012

5. Click Save Details.
6. Go to Manage Feed > Advanced Settings on our site, and set the Upload by FTP setting to No - Update feed file only.
7. Under "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" on our site, enter the following settings:

   FTP Username:	leave blank
   FTP Password:	leave blank
   FTP Server:	leave blank
   File Name:	clixgalore.csv
   Update Frequency:	Daily
   Auto-Skip:	Enabled

How do I set up a Pricewatch data feed?

1. Visit Pricewatch.com and apply for a dealer account.
2. Wait for Pricewatch to approve your account.

1. Login to our site and add a feed using the Pricewatch template.
2. Enter the objinfo.xml URL and optionally, the catalog.xml URL.
3. Click 'Update' to save the settings.
4. You may need to configure your fields to correctly submit manufacturer and manufacturer part number information. You can do that on the "Manage Feed > Define Fields" page.
5. Go to "Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File".
6. Select the "File URL" setting and copy it for later use.
7. Use the link to generate a data feed file if it does not exist.
8. Login to your Pricewatch Dealer/Merchant account and click the "Fileimport" button in the top menu bar.
9. Paste the File URL in the "Enter file location here (URL) " box, check the box labeled "Enable file retrieval and price updating ", and then click "Submit File URL". Do not check the box labeled, "Delete all Price Watch ads not found in file."

1. Contact Pricewatch to make sure the listings are being received correctly.

Buy.com Marketplace Inventory Feed Information

We can provide a Buy.com Marketplace Inventory Feed. The requirements are listed below.

1. Each product being listed must have a UPC code
2. Each product being listed must already exist in the buy.com marketplace
3. The feed must be uploaded manually to the buy.com website by the merchant

If you do not meet all three requirements listed above, we will not be able to provide a feed for you at this time.

For the inventory feed, you may need to populate additional data in your product database. The fields are:

ListingId
ProductId
ProductIdType
ItemCondition
Price
Quantity
OfferExpeditedShipping
Description
ShippingRateStandard
ShippingRateExpedited
ShippingLeadTime
ReferenceId

Some are required and some are optional. Please refer to the Buy.com data feed specifications for more details. Once you have the right data in your catalog (particularly, UPC codes), we can set up the feed almost immediately.

Note that Buy.com feeds must be uploaded manually to the Buy.com website, since Buy.com does not support automated update methods (like FTP push/HTTP pull) at this time.

If your products do not already exist in the buy.com marketplace, then you must submit a "New Products" feed to buy.com or add the items manually via their New SKU Tool in their seller website. Please contact us if you need a "New Products" feed.

How to update the ASPDNSF product export code.

1. Go to Free Product Data Exporter for AspDotNetStoreFront
2. Enter your password (This can be found in the "URL of CSV Data" setting on the "Manage Feed > Modify Settings" page.)
3. Check the box to accept license agreement
4. Download code file 1 of 2
5. Download code file 2 of 2
6. Replace the current files in your server's web root folder with the new files
7. Ensure that the permissions are set correctly on the files

Resolving character encoding issues in your data feed.

In Google Merchant Center, you may see an error that says:

Encoding problem in attribute: description - Some of the characters in your items seem to be invalid. Please verify all the characters in your feed are valid for your selected encoding.

To resolve this, take the following steps.

1. Verify that your data feed's "Encoding" setting in Google Merchant Center is set to "UTF-8".
2. In your product descriptions/titles in your Yahoo Store, replace the Windows characters listed below with the corresponding HTML entities.

   If you see this in your store	then, replace it with this
   •	•
   ”	”
   “	“
   ’	’
   ‘	‘
   ™	™

Discussion

Microsoft uses a proprietary encoding (called CP-1252) for the bullet symbol and some other special characters, whereas most websites and data feeds use UTF-8. When you copy-paste from a Microsoft product into a website, some characters may appear as junk. Our system generates data feeds in the UTF-8 character encoding, which many shopping engines now require.

How to integrate your shopping cart with our data feed engine

Our data feed engine can integrate with your shopping cart if it provides a source data feed file that meets the following technical requirements and specifications.

• What to Include: Any and all product data should be exported (except sensitive information like cost, supplier name, etc.). See below for details.
• Format: product data export file in flat-file format (e.g. tab-delimited, pipe-delimited, comma-separated)
• Preferred Format: Excel-compatible CSV preferred - comma-separated, double-quotes enclosure, and double-quote escape character, CR/LF or LF as line separator.
• Header: The first line must be a header that describes the column names.
• Column names can be anything, in any order. They can be renamed or rearranged at any time. There is no restriction.
• Location: on a fixed/unchanging HTTP or FTP URL
• Unbuffered: start sending data immediately without long delays
• Headers: include an accurate, last-modified HTTP header if possible
• Submit one line for each variant, if applicable.
• There is no size limit
• Export must deliver the data as fast as possible (finish within 30 minutes)
• Zip the CSV file for improved performance. The zip file and contents can be named anything. All the files in the zip archive will be unzipped and merged verbatim into a single file.

Once you have prepared the above, all you would provide us is the link to the file and then we would set up your data feeds. Please contact us for a quote. Example URLs:

http://www.store.com/data-export.csv
ftp://user:password@ftp.store.com/data-export.csv

Content Guidelines

• The product must be purchasable online from your website.
• The following data must be provided at a minimum:
  • unique identifier (SKU, product ID, product code, etc.)
  • non-zero price
  • image URL, link, file name, or path
  • product URL, link, file name, or path
  • product name or title
  • product description or caption
  • product condition (new, used, or refurbished)
  • product availability (in stock, out of stock, etc.)
  • UPC (universal product code), EAN, or ISBN (if available)
  • manufacturer part number (MPN)
  • brand (or manufacturer)

Set Up Instructions for Oodle Data Feed (Backfill Program)

These are the instructions to add a feed for Oodle's free backfill data feed program from your Yahoo Store The backfill program is limited to 15,000 items, and has numerous other restrictions.

Add Data Feed

1. Go to the My Account > Add Feed.
2. Select the Oodle Template and click Add.
3. Enter your objinfo/catalog XML URLs and click Update. Leave FTP settings blank.
4. Go to the Manage Feed > Define Fields.
5. Edit the 'category', 'address', 'city', 'state', and 'zip_code' fields and enter an appropriate Default Value for each.
6. Go to Tasks > Submit a Task and click Refresh.
7. Go to Manage Feed > Product List and note the item count.
8. Go to Manage Feed > Download Data Feed File and copy the File URL.

Set up Oodle Account

1. Go to the Oodle Submit Feed page.
2. Select Stuff as the Feed Category.
3. Enter the Number of Listings in Your Feed that you noted above.
4. Select Delimited Text as the File Format.
5. Select CSV as the File Delimiter.
6. Select Via URL as the Transfer Mechanism.
7. Paste the File URL that you copied above into the Full URL of the feed box, and hen click Test Feed. You should see a message "Feed looks good. Please enter contact information below and click Submit. All fields are required. " at the top of the page.
8. Fill in the remaining information in Step 2: Contact Information and Step 3: Your Website Information and then click Submit.
9. The feed setup is complete. You should see a message saying "Thank you for submitting your feed request. You should receive an automated e-mail response shortly and then our Feed Management team will follow-up with your request.".
10. Oodle will not provide technical support for the backfill program. But if you have questions, you can contact them via the Oodle Classifieds - Help Contact Form.

Can non-US merchants or sellers list products in the shopping engines?

In general, the US-based shopping engines only allow merchants based in the US.

Please contact the shopping search engine or refer to their terms and conditions to determine if they allow non-US based sellers.

We act as an intermediary, so merchant policies would still apply to you. While we can set up feeds for your store, you are ultimately responsible for determining if your listings are acceptable to the shopping website.

Item Error and Warning Help

id missing

'id' is a required attribute and should be set to the unique identifier, SKU, or product ID of the product.

title missing

'title' is a required attribute and should be set to the product name.

description missing

'description' is a required attribute and should be set to the product description.

image_link missing

'image_link' is a required attribute and should be set to the main product image URL.

link missing

'link' is a required attribute and should be set to the product URL.

price missing

'price' is a required attribute and should be set to the product selling price.
Related: Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?

price is zero

Items with zero price are not allowed.
Related: Why don't product sections, products with zero price, or items marked non-orderable show up in the product list?

invalid condition

'condition' must be one of the following values: 'new', 'used', or 'refurbished'
Related: Configuring the 'condition' attribute for Google feeds.

invalid availability

'availability' must be one of the following values: 'in stock', 'out of stock', 'available for order', or 'preorder'
Related: How to configure Google Product Search Availability attribute

invalid online_only

'online_only' must be one of the following values: 'y', 'n', or ''

invalid age_group

'age_group' must be one of the following values: 'adult', 'kids', or ''
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

2 of 3 of brand/MPN/GTIN are required

A minimum of two of the three identifier fields (brand, MPN, and GTIN) must be filled in with properly formatted and factually correct data.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid UPC

UPC must always be 12 numeric digits. Use leading zeros if needed.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid GTIN

GTIN must be a valid UPC, JAN, EAN, or ISBN.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid JAN

JAN must be 8 or 13 numeric digits.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid EAN

EAN must be 8, 13, or 14 numeric digits.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid ISBN

ISBN must be 10 or 13 numeric digits, or 9 numeric digits followed by an 'X'.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

invalid MPN

MPN must be at three or more characters.
Related: How should I configure the brand, MPN, and UPC fields?

prohibited text '{x}' found in {x}

The specified keyword is not allowed in any field and will cause the item to be disapproved.
Related: How do I deal with disapproved or disallowed items?

10000 character limit exceeded in {x}

Each attribute may only have up to 10,000 characters.

age_group required for apparel items

Age_group must be set to one of the following values for apparel items: 'adult' or 'kids'.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

gender required for apparel items

Gender must be set to one of the following values for apparel items: 'male', 'female', or 'unisex'.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

description less than 15 characters

The description is recommended to be at least 15 characters long.

title over 70 characters

The title is recommended to be less than 70 characters long.
Related: Title Length for SEO: Importance of the 70 character limit for Google

missing google_product_category

Google_product_category is a strongly recommended field.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes

invalid google_product_category

'google_product_category' must be one of the official categories from the Google taxonomy. Only one category can be specified. Spacing is important, but capitalization is not. You must use the 'Text' format, either with or without double-quotes.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes

missing product_type

Product type is a recommended field. It is not required. Set a Default Value if desired by going to Manage Feed > Define Fields and editing the field.
Related: Google Product Category and Product Type attributes

color required for apparel items

A 'color' value is required for all items in Apparel & Accessories. The color must be the dominant color of the pictured item.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

size required for clothing and shoes

A 'size' value is required for items in Apparel & Accessories > Clothing and Apparel & Accessories > Shoes. Specify the size of the pictured item, or the most common size of the item.
Related: Google Required Attributes for Apparel Items (US-sellers)

TheFind Data Feed

How do I set up a TheFind data feed?

TheFind is a comparison shopping engine with about five million unique visitors per month, on par with Shopping.com and Shopzilla. The best part is that just like Google, there is no charge for their merchant program. This is a great way to promote your Yahoo Store products for free.

1. Create your TheFind merchant account.
   1. Go to TheFind Merchant Center and follow the instructions to create a Merchant Account.
   2. Make sure to follow the instructions to 'Verify' your store.
   3. Tip: From your store editor, click the 'Variables' link. Then, at the bottom of the footer field, add the verification or banner code provided by TheFind. Publish the store and verify that the code appears.
2. Create your product feed settings.
   1. Log into your TheFind Merchant Account.
   2. Click on the store name to go to the dashboard for that store.
   3. Click on the 'Product Feed Upload' menu item.
   4. Enter the following settings and click 'Save'.
      • "Feed Format" = TheFind
      • "File Type" = .zip
      • "Email Me" = Always (You can change this to 'Only with Error' once it is working.)
      • "Email Address" = your email address
      • "Upload Method" = FTP Settings
3. Set up FTP settings.
   1. Click on the 'Product Feed Upload' menu item again.
   2. Click on the "FTP Settings >" button at the bottom.
   3. Enter an FTP password and click 'Setup My FTP'. Here is a random password for your convenience: ful2ss5
4. Add a feed in your Aten account.
   1. Go to 'My Account > Add Feed'
   2. Enter your store name, choose the 'TheFind' template, and click the 'Create Feed' button.
   3. Configure the feed settings from 'Manage Feed > Modify Settings'
   4. Enter export Urls and enter the FTP username/password you created in section III, and click 'Update'.
   5. Go to the 'Tasks > Submit a Tasks' menu and click the 'Submit' button.
5. TheFind says that feed processing will take about three business days. Login to your TheFind merchant account and select Product Feed Upload to check for updates. They also provide an option to receive notifications on feed status.

For more information on TheFind, you may find the links below helpful.

• TheFind Merchant FAQ
• TheFind Merchant Help
• TheFind Data Feed Specifications and Formatting Instructions - Use for optimizing

Website Url Verification Tutorial

Introduction to Google Url Verification

Verification has two steps, verification and claiming. Verification proves that you have control over the URL, and claiming lets Google know in which Google account you want to use the URL. You can only claim the URL in one Google account, but you can verify it in many of them.

Verification must be done first via Google Webmaster Tools. Claiming is done on the Google Merchant Center Basic Settings Page. Both steps must be completed in order for your product listings to be accepted by Google.

We recommend that you verify and claim the root or parent domain of your website, without any prefixes. For instance, use "walmart.com" rather than "www.walmart.com". Verifying the former automatically verifies the latter, as well as any other sub-domains.

Step 1: Log into Google Webmaster Tools

This topic covers how to claim and verify your Yahoo Store Website Url for use with Google Merchant Center. Google requires you to verify and claim your Website URL by May 18, 2010, otherwise, your listing will be disapproved. There are a lot of steps, but the process is very simple and should only take 5-10 minutes.

First, go to Google Webmaster Tools and log in with your Google Login.

After you log in, your screen will appear something like below. If your domain already appears as verified on this screen, then skip down to Step 7.

Step 2: Add your Site to Webmaster Tools

Click the "Add a Site" button, and enter your website domain name beginning with 'http' and, if applicable, without the 'www.' prefix.

You can specify either 'https' or 'http', but we advise 'http' to avoid SSL issues.

Leaving off the 'www.' prefix is advisable because then you will also be claiming all sub-domains of your domain.

Step 3: Verify Ownership of your Url in Google Webmaster Tools

After you add your site, you will be redirected to the 'Verify Ownership' page. On this page, select 'Upload an HTML file' as the 'Verification method'.

Copy the file name that you see to your clipboard, e.g. google99b9d12cd333da44.html

Step 4: Specify Sitemap Verification File in your Yahoo Store

1. Open a new browser window.
2. Log into your Yahoo Store Manager
3. Go to the 'Search Engines' page, under the 'Promotion' section.
4. In the box labeled "Google Sitemap Verification File", paste the file name that you copied from the Verify Your Site page.
5. Click 'Done' to save the settings.
6. Publish your Order Settings.

Reference: Verifying Site Ownership with Google

Step 5: Confirm Upload of Verification File

Go back to the 'Verify Ownership' page in Google Webmaster tools.

Click the link in step 3, where it says to 'Confirm successful upload by visiting ...'. A new window or tab should open, and it should look something like the screen shot below. If this doesn't happen, check again that you followed the prior instructions.

Step 6: Click Verify Ownership Button

From the 'Verify Ownership' page in Google Webmaster tools, simply click the 'Verify' button.

If it is successful, you will be redirected to the Dashboard and your domain will be shown on the top left corner of the page, as shown below.

Step 7: Log into your Google Merchant Center Account

Go to Google Merchant Center and log in with your Google Login.

Step 8: Add Website Url to Google Merchant Center

1. Click the 'Settings > General' tab from the left column.
2. In the Website URL input box, enter the Website URL you entered before. If it is already entered, skip down to #5.
3. Click 'Save Changes' at the bottom of the page.

4. If you receive an error like 'Internal Error' after clicking 'Save Changes', then please try again later.
5. After the changes are saved, scroll down to the Website Url setting again and click the 'Claim this URL' link.

6. Your website URL should now be verified and claimed. This completes the tutorial.

Alternate: Google Sitemap Verification via META tags for Yahoo Store

If you enter the Google Sitemaps Verification File in your Yahoo Store, but it appears blank when you view it in your browser, you can try the META tag method instead.

1. Select the META tag Verification Method in Google Webmaster Central.
2. Copy the META tag code to your clipboard.
3. Log into your Yahoo Store and open Store Editor.
4. Go to 'Variables > Page Properties > Head-tags'.
5. Copy the META tag code into the box, click the Update button, and then publish your store. The meta tag code should look something like:
   <meta name="google-site-verification" content="L5xRoKd-x3q321bcTz5l2LJjLqJvtcKIqmH0BGlIEO" />
6. After your store is published, go back to Google Webmaster Central and click the Verify button.

Yahoo Store Help

How do I bulk delete items via the Yahoo Store Catalog Manager?

If you do not have that many items to delete, you can delete them from Catalog Manager directly. See How do I delete an item in Catalog Manager?.

Otherwise, download your catalog CSV file from Yahoo, then change the Path of the items you want to delete to a path like 'TODELETE'. Then, upload the file and commit. Now, you can just navigate to the 'TODELETE' section in the Store Editor, and delete it. All the items in that section will also be deleted. See Uploading and Downloading Items via Catalog Manager for more information.

See this page for more information on deleting sections and all the items in them: Deleting a Page in the Store Editor.

For additional support on this topic, please contact Yahoo Store Merchant Support directly.

Yahoo Store Design, RTML Programming, and SEO Services

We specialize in data feeds, so we do not offer Yahoo Store design services, RTML template development, CPC campaign management, or SEO services.

We have had clients who have worked with the companies listed below. We do not endorse any of these companies, but provide this list for your reference only.

• FastPivot - a high-end design company
• 1Choice4YourStore - a medium-budget company
• YTimes - advanced RTML development
• CPCStrategy - full-service, pay-per-click feed management

You can also consult the developer list at the Yahoo Merchant Solutions Developer Network website, which has a listing of many design companies.

Wrong number of fields detected (x instead y)

Your Yahoo Store might give you a message that says, "WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)" when you upload a CSV file from Excel into your Yahoo Store Editor or Catalog Manager via Database Upload.

This is an Excel problem. Sometimes, Excel does not put trailing commas if the last few fields in a row are blank. In that case, Yahoo thinks the field is missing. As a workaround, just rearrange the columns so that a column with full data is the right-most column. For example, you can just move the 'id' column to the end.

An example is below.

Tue May 1 10:40:10 2011
Database upload	default-table Uploaded
Field names=(:ID :MANUFACTURER-PART-NUMBER :BRAND :GOOGLE-PRODUCT-TYPE
:UPC :NAME :MANUFACTURER)
600 records are loaded for add.

Warnings and Errors
Record	Detail
16 [Show]	WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)
17 [Show]	WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)
18 [Show]	WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)
19 [Show]	WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)
20 [Show]	WARNING: Wrong number of fields detected(6 instead 7)

"Enabled, but do not syndicate" option in Yahoo Store

Under Promote > Search Engines in your Yahoo Store Manager, you will find links to two store export files, objinfo.xml and objinfo.xml, that contain all the data in your store catalog. (Legacy stores only have objinfo.xml.) Each store export file has three settings, Enabled, Enabled, but do not syndicate, and Disabled. This article explains the definition of each option.

Disabled

This means the store export files will not be available for download from your store. If someone tries to access the URLs, the server will return an error.

Enabled

This means the store export files will be available for download by anyone from your Yahoo Store. Furthermore, Yahoo will submit an automatic data feed to their partner search engine, PriceGrabber. (You would still need a paid PriceGrabber account to actually receive clicks.) We are not aware of them submitting to any other search engine automatically.

Enabled, but do not syndicate

This also means the store export files will be available for download by anyone from your Yahoo Store. However, Yahoo will not automatically submit the files to PriceGrabber.

We recommend our customers to use the Enabled, but do not syndicate setting because the automatic feed from Yahoo to Pricegrabber interferes with the PriceGrabber data feed submitted from our system. Yahoo's automatic feed to Pricegrabber is generally not reliable or customizable, so many merchants prefer to use our data feed service to submit to them.

Power Tips for Yahoo Store Merchants

Videos on how to use Catalog Manager

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so certainly, a video could be worth 10,000. Our friends over at 1Choice4YourStore have put together some awesome Yahoo Store Help Videos on how to make the most of the Database Upload feature of the Yahoo Store Catalog Manager. Spend a couple hours watching these videos and it could save you days of tedious work in the Store Editor!

iMacros Add-on for Firefox

You can automate your busy-work with the iMacros Add-on for Firefox. After installing it, press F8 to see sample macros and play/record buttons in a side-bar. Then, click Record to record your actions. When you're done recording, click the Play button to play back your actions. It will save you a lot of time on some repetitious tasks!. For example, you can set up automatic addition of property fields to Yahoo Legacy store items.

Tip: To work with the Yahoo Store Editor, switch the mode from 'html tag' to 'x/y' before recording. After recording your actions, delete the GOTO URL line and then replace the form and attr lines with the '*' symbol. You may have to create multiple macros depending on the position of the buttons on various types of pages, e.g. pages with multiple products per page vs. pages with a single item.

iMacros Sample Scripts to Automate Yahoo Store Property Addition

Add properties to page with multiple product per page:

VERSION BUILD=7400919 RECORDER=FX
TAB T=1
CLICK X=449 Y=29
CLICK X=223 Y=94
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=brand
CLICK X=191 Y=173
CLICK X=319 Y=30
CLICK X=274 Y=95
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=mpn
CLICK X=192 Y=168
CLICK X=282 Y=31
CLICK X=275 Y=89
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=google-product-category
CLICK X=185 Y=162
CLICK X=300 Y=27
CLICK X=249 Y=93
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=size
CLICK X=178 Y=167
CLICK X=311 Y=28
CLICK X=247 Y=86
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=color
CLICK X=200 Y=167
CLICK X=304 Y=30
CLICK X=212 Y=89
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=upc
CLICK X=186 Y=163
CLICK X=279 Y=30
CLICK X=255 Y=94
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=gender
CLICK X=192 Y=162
CLICK X=295 Y=28
CLICK X=250 Y=92
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=age-group
CLICK X=196 Y=164

Add properties to item with single product per page:

VERSION BUILD=7400919 RECORDER=FX
TAB T=1
CLICK X=291 Y=23
CLICK X=265 Y=96
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=brand
CLICK X=181 Y=161
CLICK X=300 Y=29
CLICK X=251 Y=87
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=mpn
CLICK X=183 Y=159
CLICK X=287 Y=26
CLICK X=261 Y=89
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=google-product-category
CLICK X=214 Y=158
CLICK X=309 Y=32
CLICK X=222 Y=97
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=size
CLICK X=199 Y=165
CLICK X=283 Y=24
CLICK X=235 Y=87
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=color
CLICK X=205 Y=163
CLICK X=293 Y=29
CLICK X=297 Y=98
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=upc
CLICK X=196 Y=162
CLICK X=282 Y=32
CLICK X=202 Y=93
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=gender
CLICK X=195 Y=166
CLICK X=296 Y=31
CLICK X=221 Y=95
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:* ATTR=NAME:* CONTENT=age-group
CLICK X=195 Y=159
 

Thanks to Cary (Racing Gear by Wesco Performance) for the iMacros tips and sample code!

Yahoo Store Corrupt Caption in objinfo.xml Store Export

Yahoo Store has an known bug where the 'caption' field in the objinfo.xml store export file is occasionally corrupted. The captions are truncated and mismatched after a certain point in the file, resulting in wrong product descriptions for most of the products.

Our system uses the captions from the catalog.xml, if available, which are not corrupted. Unfortunately, for legacy stores, our system relies on the captions in the objinfo.xml, and this therefore causes data feed corruption. The corruption occurs rather infrequently.

We have been contacting Yahoo regarding this for many months with no resolution. We have implemented retry logic to attempt to detect the corruption, but it is not 100% reliable.

We have an open support ticket Yahoo tech support and they say they are working on a fix.