Getting your Actinic products into Google's Shopping searches

Google Product Search has been previously known as Froogle and GoogleBase. The previous Mole End feeds, GoogleBase XML and GoogleBase CSV /Froogle, are no longer being supported and anyone wishing to list their products, with Google, should now use the new Google Product Search feed.

Google Product Search is used by people to search for products to buy, mostly based on price but also allowing the potential customer to filter their searches based on brands, models and other criteria. Products submitted to Google Product Search are also shown within the main searches, either at the top or in the middle. Listing on Google Product Search is free.

Mole End produces a Google Product Search Mash that takes your Actinic products and creates a feed suitable to send to Google to show your products within its Product Search. This product can enable you to provide a suitable feed for this purpose however, due to changing requirements, now requires a period of setting up, both within Actinic and in the Product Mash itself. Various features are provided to allow you to tailor the feed to meet your individual requirements and how you have setup your Actinic shop.

There is a 30 free trial. You can find out more information at:

http://www.mole-end.co.uk/acatalog/Googlebase.html#aGB_2dMASH

How to use the Google and the Googlebase Mash

To start listing on Google Product Search you should create a Google Merchant account at:

http://google.co.uk/merchants/

From here you will need to give a few details about your company and website, after which you can begin to set up your data feed. The FTP details and filename will then be entered into the Google Product Search Mash to allow your Actinic products to be automatically uploaded. You can upload as often as you like. Most people upload once a day.

Setting up the Google Product Search Mash properties

Google Shopping Properties

The properties section allows you to add additional information to your feed and to configure values that are not included in Actinic by default.  You can also override the values output be default by specifying them here.

Properties included by default

The properties below are included in the output feed by default, if you wish to change the value that is output, you can add the property to the list of properties and specify the value you would like to use.

id (required) A unique ID for your product, this value must remain the same for the lifetime of the feed. This defaults to the Actinic product ID.
title (required) Name of product. This defaults to the product name/short description provided in Actinic.
description (required) Description of product. This defaults to the main product full description defined in Actinic.
image_link (required) Image to use for the product. This defaults to the image defined in Actinic for the product.
link (required) HTML page to display when the product is clicked on. This defaults to the product page within your Actinic shop.
price (required) Cost of the product. This defaults to the calculated price within Actinic. If your store has prices entered without VAT, you should ensure that the « Add tax to price » option is checked on the main Product Mash settings page.
currency (required) Set to pounds by default or dollars for us installations
shipping (required) Set to the values specified in the feed options
Expiration_date (required) Set to the appropriate value to meet the times specified in the feed options
condition (required) Defaults to new, but will be picked up from Actinic is specified there

Required Properties

Unique product identifiers Google needs a way to identify your product.  You must enter two of the following variables :
brand, manufacturers part number or gtin (gtin can be one of these values -EAN (barcode), ISBN, or UPC, More details available here : http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160161).   

Google requires unique product identifiers for all products that are not custom-made goods. For clothing, you must submit the 'brand' attribute. For media (such as books, films, music and video games), you must submit the 'gtin' attribute. In all cases, we recommend that you submit all three attributes.
 availability (required)                                     Defaults to 'in stock', can be 'in stock', 'available for order', 'out of stock' or 'preorder'. 
Use the macro !!InStockText!! to set this to 'in stock' when Actinic indicates that a product is in stock and 'out of stock' otherwise.
product type               This attribute contains the category of the product according to your taxonomy. As with the 'google product category' attribute, include the category with full “breadcrumb” information.
For example, 'Books > Non-Fiction > Sports > Baseball' is better than just 'Baseball'.

Use the macro !!SectionText!! to use the breadcrumb trail from your catalog.
product category                 

(Required for products listing in certain categories recommended otherwise)		 The Google variable product_type should be chosen from a list available at http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=160081. You can enter a global, site-wide value here but, if your store has products which fall into more than one product type, you will need to set up a custom variable, within Actinic, and enter each product’s value within there. You can then link this to the product_category property within the Product Mash.

Required for items in these categories :
  • 'Clothing & Accessories > Clothing'
  • 'Clothing & Accessories > Shoes'
  • 'Clothing & Accessories'
  • 'Media > Books'
  • 'Media > DVDs & Films'
  • 'Media > Music'
  • 'Software > Video Game Software'


Other Variables

These variables are not always required but are available to add to the feed in the properties list given when you add or edit a property..
brand Use text to enter a generic brand or !!$brand$!! to pick up the actinic v10 user defined property (V10 and above)
upc The ean for the product, set to !!$upc$!! to use the actinic variable (V10 and above)
ean The ean for the product, set to !!$ean$!! to use the actinic variable (V10 and above)
isbn The isbn number for the product if applicable (Available as !!$isbn$!! in V10 and above)
online only 'y' to indicate that this item is only available online, 'n' if it is available in a physical shop (default).  If you have physical shops,   If you have physical stores and are listing on google shopping, go to Google places and enter details of your stores, they will then be displayed against your google shopping results, for more details see http://www.google.com/support/merchants/bin/answer.py?answer=1101441
additional_image_link
(Recommended)		 If you have additional images for this item, include them through the additional image link property
Excluded destination By default your products will appear in Product Ads and in Google Commerce.  If you do not want this to happen, add this attribute and select the appropriate media to exclude from the list.
Shipping Weight The weight of the product, use the macro !!Weight!! to use the weight as defined in Actinic.


Retired Variables

These variables have been retired, you can include them in your feed still but they will not be used in the google shopping results.  We will remove these from the product mash shortly.

quantity,
feature,
manufacturer,
genre,
featured product,
year,
author,
edition
product review
product review count

Variants

If you have products with different options you can now enter one line for each product option available.  This is optional at the moment but will probably become required in the near future.

To enter variants products via Actinic at the moment, you have to create a hidden product for each of the valid variations on the product in the same section as the product and choose to include hidden products in the feed, assign the appropriate price, image and attributes to each hidden product and include details of the parent product to the hidden product as item-group-id.

The variables below can be included for variant products, you should include only 1 value for each variable for each variant.

You variant products must have the correct price and an image that shows the product variation or google will reject them.

item group-id The id for the parent product for this variant
color the color of the item
size The size of the item
pattern The dominant pattern for the item
material The main material(s) for them, separate multiple entries with '/'
gender Male, Female or Unisex
age group Adult, Kids

You may still include these attributes in your feed, but the information will not be used in Google Product Search. In particular, please note that the 'quantity' attribute is no longer an acceptable method of indicating "out of stock" products - you must use the 'availability' attribute instead.

You can override any these values at a product or section level by using a custom variable

See http://moleend.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=10 for Actinic V8 onwards and http://moleend.helpserve.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=40 for Actinic V7 and below for how to setup custom variables

 

You can get more information on the Google Product Search options at
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/PMFAGooglebaseInfo.html

 

and more information on how to use more advanced value setting at:
http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/PMFAAdvancedInfo.html

 

Shipping

 

Google requires shipping charges to be indicated for all items listed on Google’s Product Search.


The Product Mash can extract your shipping details for products, based on the settings in your Actinic store

 

Details of how to set up your shipping, can be found on the below link

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/PMFAGooglebaseInfo.html