New Automatic Data Feeds For Google Merchant Center

Recently, I posted a blog entry about Google Merchant Center data feeds, and I showed you how to set up a data feed for your products. Some of our clients were really interested in utilizing this feature, so they went through the steps and, alas! It didn’t work. For other clients, the whole process seemed a little bit too complicated. UniformMarket to the rescue!

First, we identified the issue that some of our clients were having, and I’m going to show you how to avoid that issue. Secondly, we developed a way for you to set up a data feed that will automatically update itself, meaning that you can set up your data feed once and then let Google do the rest. Today, I’m going to walk you through the setup process. But before I begin, let me first say that I’m so happy that our clients are reading the blog and providing feedback! Keep it coming!

How to set up your data feed

Forget what I said in my last data feeds blog post, because you no longer need to download the .csv file of your store’s products. In fact, you no longer need to download or upload anything. Let’s just start fresh. This time with pictures!

First, sign into the Google Merchant Center. Click on “data feeds“.

Then click on “new test data feed“. It’s very important to do a test run before you upload the real thing. If there are any errors in the test data feed, it’s much easier to fix them before you upload the real data feed. Once you’ve had a successful test data feed, you can follow these same instructions for the real thing.

Now, give your data feed a name. It doesn’t really matter what you call it. Nobody’s going to see the name but you. You do, however, need to end it with .xml.

Now you’ll be taken back to the main page. Find the data feed that you just made and click “create“.

Now you need to schedule the data feed upload and tell Google the URL of the feed. You can schedule it to be retrieved daily, weekly, or monthly. If you are a UniformMarket client, the feed URL is going to be your store’s URL followed by datafeed.xml. So for pretend UniformMarket client www.supercooluniforms.com, the data feed URL would be http://www.supercooluniforms.com/datafeed.xml.

Then click “schedule“. Now, you’ll be brought back to the main page, you’ll look for your data feed, and you’ll click “edit“. This is important!

You’re going to see this page:

Select “yes” under “Use Quoted Fields“! If you do not select “yes”, your data feed will not work!

Once your data feed is up and running, you’ll be able to monitor it on your dashboard. You can data about performance (clicks and impressions) and data quality (errors and issues).

And then you can look for your products in Google product search!

And that’s all! Now, Google will automatically upload your data feed at the time that you’ve scheduled. I hope that this is clear and not too complicated. Please let me know if you encounter any issues! I look forward to seeing your products in Google product search!