Generate Google Base Data File (Google Products Search)

Basically, “Products Search” is a product index within the larger Google Base database. You will need a Google account to submit products and content to Google Base. More information about uploading data to Google Products Search. ProductCart will create the Google Base file for you. You will then need to register it with Google.

ProductCart will automatically create a tab-delimited file structured according to the Google Base guidelines. The file will include the following fields (Google Base Attributes).

• Title
  The product name, up to 80 characters.
• Description
  The product description. Google recommends that you don't include promotional or boilerplate text. Up to a maximum length of 10,000 characters.
• Link
  The full URL to the product details page.
• Image_Link
  The URL to the product image. Google recommends that you use your full-sized images, and not thumbnail images, so ProductCart uses the General Image.
• Id
  A unique product identifier, for which ProductCart uses the SKU. IMPORTANT: Once you submit an item with a unique id, this identifier must not change when you send in a new data feed. Each item must retain the same id in subsequent feeds.
• Price
  The online price is used.
• Currency
  An option selected on the page when you create the data feed.
• Condition
  An option selected on the page when you create the data feed.
• Additional fields (MPN, UPC, ISBN)
  If you are submitting to Google Base in the US, Google started requiring the following, additional attributes in June of 2007. Clearly, there are many products for which this information is not available. If that is the case, you can leave them blank (see FAQ on Google Web site).

• Categories
  Select categories that should be excluded. To improve performance, you can limit the amount of categories included in the map. To select the categories that you would like to exclude from the map generation process, click on any of the categories shown in the Exclude These Categories field. Keep the CTRL key on your keyboard pressed to select multiple categories.
• Currency
  Select the currency that applies to your store from the Currency drop-down when generating the data feed.
• Condition
  Select the products condition from the drop-down when generating the data feed.
• Expiration Date
  The date that the item listing expires or that information about this item is going to change.
• Exclude wholesale categories
  Check this checkbox to exclude categories that are only visible to wholesale customers (and therefore hidden to the casual visitor to your e-commerce store).
• Exclude 'not for sale' products
  Check this checkbox to exclude products that are not currently available for purchase. Note that inactive products are always excluded.
• Additional fields (MPN, UPC, ISBN)
  Use Custom Search Fields to pre-fill these fields. To do so, you need to map specific search fields to export fields.

ProductCart will generate a properly formatted TEXT file (*.txt). The file will be saved to the PCADMIN folder (which has likely been renamed following our recommended security guidelines). You can enter the name of the file to be created at the top of the Google Base export page in ProductCart.

In the fall of 2008 Google announced a new feature that makes it easy for merchants to post data to Google Base. The feature is called Scheduling. Learn more about Scheduling your Google Base data feed on the Google Web site. Here are step-by-step instructions for creating your schedule.

So you now have two options to post your products data to Google Base:

• Point Google Base to a URL on your Web site taking advantage of the scheduling feature
• Upload the file yourself to your Google Base account

In either case, please note the following:

• The file name for your Google Base Data Feed must rename the same if you want to update existing items. However, you can also register a new bulk upload file. More information on how to use the Google Base administration area.
• Do not include the date in the name of the file.
• Once your data feed has been registered by Google Base, your items will become searchable in the Google Base database. However, remember that they will expire in 30 days from the date of the last upload, so remember to either use the scheduling feature or upload a new version of your bulk upload file regularly.