Google Merchant Center

Transcription

1 Google Merchant Center Version : Last update : 29/10/2012 Development : Business Tech modules@businesstech.fr Google prerequisites You must first register on Google Merchant Center by going to Please also visit the Help resources tab in the module and visit the Google resources. This is very important as Google is implementing new requirements as of September 22 nd, Installation Install the module as usual. Additionally, copy the gmerchantcenter.xml.php file in your shop s root directory (optional, see Setting up an automatic update schedule below). Module configuration All the fields and options are commented directly on the module configuration screen, so there is no need to elaborate on that. Try to include as many elements as possible and click on Update. Updating and saving your XML file(s) In your Prestashop back-office, go to the module s configuration screen. Scroll to the bottom and find the section labelled Your Google Merchant Center URLs. Under Your XML files, Click the update / regenerate icon. This will update your file. Note that some countries (Switzerland for example) can have multiple languages (French, German and Italian in this case). The module is compatible with this reality and makes it possible to submit several languages for a given country. Anyway, once the update is done, click on the link for your target country / language. The XML file will open in a new window.

2 For Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, go to your browser s File menu and select Save as and save the file in XML format. For Google Chrome, perform a right-click anywhere on the XML page and select Save as. Manual upload of your XML file 1) Select your target country and name your file. For example, gmerchantcenter.us.xml. For US merchants, the file format to select is googlebase. Save. 2) Click on «Manual upload» 3) In the pop-up, go get the file you saved previously and upload it. Validation of your feed after the initial import Once you upload your feed successfully for the first time, Google will check your file s contents. A waiting period of approximately one week (or more) is to be expected before your products become active and present in Google Shopping results. Setting up an automatic update schedule Google Merchant Center lets you set up an automatic update schedule, so that you do not have to re-upload your feed manually. To do so, in the left menu column of the Google Merchant Center interface, make sure you are on the Data feeds tab. The file you created earlier will be listed.

3 Click on the «Create» link under the «Upload schedule» column. A pop-up will open. Select the frequency and schedule date and time. A weekly update is advised. For the URL, there are 2 possibilities : 1) Your XML file URL, for example : (where is replaced by your actual shop URL of course) This URL is indicated in the module configuration screen of your Prestashop back-office, under the Your Google Merchant Center URLs section, under Your XML files.

4 However, for the file to always be up-to-date, you need to regenerate it regularly. This implies that you must set up a CRON task on your server that will execute the CRON URL indicated at the bottom of the module s configuration screen. You need to synchronize the CRON task with the schedule you set on Google so that the file will be regenerated before Google comes to fetch it for the update. If you do not know what a CRON task is or how to set it up, please refer to the «Setting up a CRON task» section below. If you have limited technical knowledge, use method 2 (just below) instead. 2) The «on-the-fly» URL, for example : This URL is indicated in the module configuration screen of your Prestashop back-office, under the Your Google Merchant Center URLs section, under Your PHP URL's for on-the-fly output.

5 This will output the XML content in real time. This is useful if you do not have the ability to set up a CRON task on your server. For very large product catalogs (several thousand products), it is not guaranteed that this will work though. If the script takes too long to generate the XML output, Google may time out before the end. If you do not see any links in this section but instead see the following message: To use this feature, please copy the gmerchantcenter.xml.php file from the gmerchantcenter module\'s directory to your shop's root directory, then you need to perform this action (the file should copy itself automatically upon module installation but certain server configurations may prevent it from working properly) 1) Go to the modules/gmerchantcenter directory 2) Copy the file gmerchantcenter.xml.php 3) Go to your shop s root directory (where the main Prestashop files are, like category.php, product.php and robots.txt etc ) 4) Paste the file 5) Upload the file to your server with your FTP software, at your shop s root. Setting up a CRON task Definition CRON is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems. The name cron comes from the word "chronos", Greek for "time". Cron enables users to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts) to run periodically at certain times or dates (source: URL to execute In your module s configuration screen, find under Your Google Merchant Center URLs, the link under Your CRON URL. This is the URL to execute. Setup via crontab (for users with technical / Linux knowledge) CRON tasks are usually set up by editing a crontab file and adding a line. For example: 0 2 * * * lynx -dump gmerchantcenter.cron.php > /dev/null This example will execute the URL every night at 2:00AM (this precise example requires that the text based browser Lynx be installed on the server). Setup via the Crontab for Prestashop module This module provides you with a graphical interface in the Prestashop back-office. Go to Download and install the module (it s free). Indicate the URL to execute mentioned above and choose your schedule. Refer to for a good explanation of schedules.

6 Multistore notes on PrestaShop 1.5 For performance reasons, the module does not support multistore configuration at the store group level. If you have several groups with multiple stores in each, you need to configure the module for each store separately. Update notes If you are updating your Google Merchant Center module from version 1.0x to 1.2.x or above, please follow these steps: 1) Uninstall the module from the Prestashop back-office module list 2) Copy the new files 3) Reinstall and reconfigure the module in your back-office and regenerate the files 4) Go to your Google Merchant Center interface, Data feeds tab, and perform a new manual import of your XML file. Then, click the Edit link under the Upload schedule column and update the URL / file. Update Notes for Prestabox users If you are updating your Google Merchant Center module from version 1.0x to 1.2.x or above, on top of the above instructions, please go to your Google Merchant Center interface, go to the Settings -> General tab and, in the Website URL, copy the URL that is in the Your Prestashop shop's URL in the module configuration screen on your Prestashop back-office. Save.