photo

Category Archives: Google Base/Checkout

Last Chance to Review Your Old Etsy Google Merchant Stats


Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

Last chance to review your old Etsy GM stats!

As Etsy uploads our goods for us, Google will be retiring Etsy feeds from our individual Google Merchant accounts (post from sean11 here in the forums).

This is your last chance to see the stats for your current feeds–your Clicks and Imprs–to know what items got a lot of attention & what kind of attention in your current history. I copied and pasted mine into a spreadsheet so I can review them later. Words are how they find your listings; photos are why they click through to your Etsy shop.

Got a whole lot of Imprs but not a lot of Clicks?
You’ll always have more Imprs than Clicks, but improving your images will improve your Clicks.

Not getting many Imprs?
You might need to work on your titles and descriptions to get keywords folks are searching for in them.

What to do for the future stats:

See this blog post http://bloghandmade.blogspot.com/2009/10/tracking-your-traffic-from-google-base.html.

Thanks to PeoplesBankBuilding for the tip!


Add comment | December 1, 2009 - 8:39 am | GoTo

Etsy has Started to Syndicate Shops


Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

Etsy has started adding syndication to Etsy shops–check your syndication status here:

http://www.etsy.com/syndication.php

Active means you are syndicated.
Pending means you are still waiting to be added.

For future reference, that’s in:

Your Etsy, links on the left under
Promote see
Syndication

What to do now?
You must enable your items for the feed to upload them:

Etsy’s GM Syndication: Enable your items

Got more questions? See the FAQs:

FAQs about the new Etsy GM feed


8 comments | November 30, 2009 - 5:43 pm | GoTo

GM: Things you should know about the new Etsy uploads


Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

Google Merchant: Things you should know about the new uploading Etsy will be doing for us:

  • Etsy will be uploading our items for us soon, as of December 1st individual sellers won’t be able to create feeds for their shops. (That’s Google’s rule, not Etsy’s.)

  • Be among the first: Those currently using the Etsy RSS method will have their shops added to Etsy’s upload first. Shops not currently using Etsy’s RSS to upload their goods will be added some time later–so if you’re not using it yet, set it up now–see the Etsy RSS tutorial linked to from our main Google Base/Merchant Center page (the gold links on the right will get you to the main Google Merchant Center page.

  • Check your items to be sure they are within Google Merchant’s guidelines now. We won’t be able to see error messages once Etsy is uploading for us. The same rules that applied before will still apply to item titles and item descriptions–like no “Free shipping”, no special characters (symbols), etc. See FAQ 3 for more details, linked to from our main Google Base/Merchant Center page, link on the right side of the blog page in gold.

  • Etsy will be adding product type values for us! Using the first three tags of each item, Etsy will create product types for the Google Merchant submission–make sure your first three tags are in a good order and be sure to keep anything that prevents items from being inserted out of the first three tags.


6 comments | November 28, 2009 - 7:12 pm | GoTo

Google Merchant: Slow Processing

Go To Supplies
Visit our 2nd Etsy shop: GoToSupplies

Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)


Google is having some slow processing issues too–see this updated post:
Google Base Glitches



Add comment | November 23, 2009 - 5:26 am | GoTo

Google Base Glitches


Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

Google Merchant Center seems to be a bit glitchy at the moment–three issues:

1. Messages saying 0 of 896 (or some other oddly high number)–those feed issues seem to self correct after a day or two. If you want to do a manual upload in the mean time to update your stock, see the “Manual” tutorial linked to from our main Google Base/Merchant Center page, link on the right–see the gold links on the right.

2. Messages saying 40 out of 100 items (or something similar) were inserted, when all 100 items had been uploaded last time without a problem. It will say that even when you log in to GM and check the number inserted next to the feed name, but for most folks, it’s just a false message:

Go to the active items page and check to see if your items are all there. Most folks have said their items are all there.

If you are actually missing items on the active items page, then you might want to troubleshoot the missing items, in case GM finally realized you are mentioning free shipping or some other thing they don’t like but are inconsistent about enforcing…

See FAQ 3 for troubleshooting help–it’s linked to from our main Google Base/Merchant Center page, link on the right–see the gold links on the right.

3. Sloooowwwww Processing–some sellers are experiencing extremely slow processing–some as long as 2 days, so if yours is stuck in processing you are not alone.


Add comment | November 22, 2009 - 6:11 am | GoTo

Google Merchant Feed for Your Website

Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

I get lots of requests for help with getting sellers’ website items up on Google’s Shopping search. Some websites & shopping carts have feeds you can use to supply your goods to Google Merchant Center, but if yours doesn’t you can use a file you upload to your website to submit your products.

For a nominal fee I’ll provide a digital file I’ve created that should help get your started and basic instructions for getting your feed up.

If you are interested in receiving the file and directions by email please use the Paypal button below and I’ll get it to you as soon as possible, usually within 48 hours.

You’ll need Microsoft Excel to open it, or something like Open Office–a free-ware program that can open & edit Microsoft Excel files.

These are my original documents, I have put my time and effort into creating and providing them for you. When purchasing, you agree not to share or sell the file or the accompanying instructions with others.


If you are from NY or CT:
Please do not use the buy it now button. Please email me for an invoice with sales tax included: gotogreatpanes@yahoo.com
Please mention if you are in NY or CT, and if you are in NY I’ll need your mailing address to properly determine sales tax.


Order the Sample Google Merchant Data Feed File & Instructions:
$5.00 delivery service charge
Pay with Paypal
Pay with PayPal



Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

6 comments | November 11, 2009 - 3:35 am | GoTo

Google Merchant Image Size


Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009


Seems lots of folks have received a letter from Google about their data feed images being too small:

“We’ve noticed that in many cases you’re submitting images that are smaller than 220 pixels X 220 pixels….”

If you received one for your Etsy shop, don’t worry–the admin are working on it! They will be setting up the larger images when they start doing the feed for us:

Read sean11’s post here in the forums




Visit our Etsy shop: GoToSupplies

Add comment | October 29, 2009 - 2:34 am | GoTo

Google Base: Etsy Admin Post

Bats from GoTo's Etsy shop



Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)


We’ve got an admin post in the Etsy forums about Google Base:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6300865




Visit our Etsy shop: GoToSupplies

Add comment | September 29, 2009 - 6:57 pm | GoTo

Google Base: New Page for Viewing Feeds

Bats from GoTo's Etsy shop



Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)


So after coming back from a few days away I logged in to Google Base and thought my feeds had been deleted like some other sellers’ feeds have been. I am pleased to say Google Base moved the page where they show the feeds.

So far, so good–we haven’t been “retired”–I just needed to update my bookmark!

The new main Google Base page:
Merchant account log in page

Feeds have been moved here:
Data Feeds Page

I’ll be going back and updating previous posts with this new page as fast as I can. :)




Visit our Etsy shop: GoToSupplies

Add comment | September 28, 2009 - 11:48 pm | GoTo

Google Base is Deleting Some Individual Sellers’ Feeds

Bats from GoTo's Etsy shop

Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2009
(This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.)

UPDATE: I have not heard of any feeds being deleted since the end of September–I wonder if they thought better of deleting feeds until the December deadline they had mentioned…

Google Base is deleting individual seller feeds. That’s the pre-formatted letter I got from Google Base tech support, and now more sellers in the forums have said their feeds have been “retired”.

I am really disappointed–they’ve given marketplaces until December to comply with the new rule which went into effect September 3rd. Even though a marketplace is not submitting a feed yet, Google Base has already retired several sellers’ feeds on Etsy and 1000markets.

It seems pretty random–some sellers have had feeds deleted, some not. Some have been able to set up Google Base feeds for the first time while others have not.

Etsy admin have said they are working on it, but it looks like it will be a few weeks before our feeds are up.

I have responded to the Google tech support message explaining how I feel this is not a good move and that feeds shouldn’t be deleted until the venue is submitting its feed–especially considering the timing for upcoming holiday season–and how sellers don’t have control over when their market place starts submitting their items. I’m hoping they will reconsider. If you’d like to contact them too, here’s the Google Base contact form:

http://base.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=no_appear

Visit our Etsy shop: GoToSupplies

Update: Click here

8 comments | September 20, 2009 - 4:16 pm | GoTo