Google Shopping | Creating a custom XML feed for Google Shopping

How to configure an XML channel for your preferred Google Shopping feed

Google Merchant Center (GMC) offers different feed options to upload product data into its platform. While Plytix has a designated Google Shopping channel with a set up template to generate a primary product feed, you may want to create different feed types for GMC. In this article, you will find a guide that you can refer to in order to set up custom XML feeds for Google Shopping using Plytix. 

 

Google Reference Material

Setting up your XML Feed

Customizing the Feed to Fit GMC Specifications

Changing Attribute Names

Processing the Feed

*Skip to any section in this article by clicking on the links above

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Google Reference Material

Google's requirements vary according to the type of product feed you would like to create. To have the most up to date information about setting up these feeds, please refer to these documents provided by Google:

• Specifications: XML product data feed in the RSS 2.0 format
• Product Data Specification
• Google Feed Guide

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Setting up your XML Feed

To start setting up your feed, head over to the “Attributes” tab to add your attributes. This is where you add all the content you want to appear in your XML feed.

In the “Attributes” tab, you need to select the attributes you want to make up your feed.

1. Click 'Add Attributes'.
2. Select the attributes that have the content (not necessarily the name) that matches the content you want to output in the feed. You can also upload a CSV template of the right attributes you need in your store, and match it with existing attribute sin your PIM. 

3. If you would like to create attribute transformations for your XML channel, click 'Add Attributes' and then 'Apply an attribute transformation'.

After adding your attributes, add a "Product List" containing the products you want to include in your feed or ' + Create a list'. 

 

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Customizing the Feed to Fit GMC specifications

Next, navigate to the “Format” tab, to set up the feed so it conforms with the specifications set by Google Merchant Center. With the attributes and product list selected, the feed already includes the attribute data for each product. Below we look at how to further define the XML feed.

Example Feed

For this example, we will use the following sample feed:

You can see full GMC feed examples here. Refer to these examples as you work with setting up your feed.

Header

The first part <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> is automatically applied by Plytix. 

RSS Node

Our first task is to add the RSS node. To do this:

1. Click the '+ Add node' button on the top right of the "Nodes" area.

2. An "Add node" panel will appear where you can customize the node.

3. In the "Node Tag" input, remove "new_node" and write "rss".

4. Add the additional information that we saw came after "rss" in the example feed shown above. This extra information will be contained in node attributes, which you can add by selecting '+ Add attribute'. A node attribute looks like this: "xmlns:g" and its value is: "http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" We add that information in the "XML Attribute" and "Value" fields as shown below.

5. Finally click 'Add node' at the top of the settings to add the node to the Feed Builder.

Channel

Our next task is to add "channel" as a subnode to the "rss" node. To do this:

1. Add a new node using the 'Add Node' button.
2. Set the "Node Tag" to "channel".
3. Then, declare a "Parent Node" using the dropdown box to select "rss".  This will place the "channel" node below the "rss" node in the Feed Builder. To finish, click the purple 'Add node' button.

Leaf Nodes

We can now add "title," "link," and "description" nodes. These three nodes must all share the "channel" node as parent and they must be created as Leaf nodes.

1. On the "channel" node, click the 'Add subnode' icon. 


2. In the "Add node" panel that appears, add "title" as the "Node tag." 

3. Check the 'Leaf node' box. This will give us a field where we can write in the corresponding value. 

4. Click on the purple 'Add node' button.

5. Repeat these steps for the "link" and "description" nodes. 

This will create the nodes as direct subnodes to the "channel" node. 

The 'LEAF' text in front of your node values simply indicates the type of node; this text will not be included in the feed.

Product Specifications

As you may have noticed in the examples above, the hierarchy for the "products" and "product" nodes does not yet conform to the specifications in the example feed.

To update this: 

1. Go into the settings of "products", by clicking the 'Edit node' icon. 
   
   
2. Change the "Parent node" to "channel".

This will move the "products" node and all of its subnodes under the "channel" node.

By default in Plytix, a product node is called "product", so we need to change this to "item" in order to meet the GMC specifications. 

To do this:

1. Click the orange "product" node's 'Edit node' icon.
   
   
2. After changing the "Node Tag" to 'item' it should look like this.

Next, we must delete the topmost "products" node that all our items currently live under. GMC lists all their items one after another (not under an "items" hierarchy level), so we do not need this "products" node.

To do this, click the 'Delete node' icon (X) on the righthand side of the top "products" node.

Deleting the "products" node moves everything up a hierarchy level, and we can now see that our feed content and hierarchy is starting to take shape:

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Changing Attribute Names

After formatting your XML feed, you will need to change the attribute 'Node Tags' so they match GMC's naming convention. 

To follow the correct naming convention for your selected feed type, make sure to check Google’s documentation. 

To change your attribute names: 

1. Click the 'Edit node' icon for each attribute node individually.
2. Change the "Node Tag" for each attribute - and a preview of the output name will display beside the attribute names with opening and closing tags (< >).
3. Press 'Okay' after editing each node tag and then 'Save changes' at the top of the Channel page.
4. Repeat for all attributes requiring a name change.

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Processing the Feed

After following these steps, your feed will be completed! All your necessary data is there, your hierarchy levels are in order, and naming conventions are adjusted for GMC.

To finalize the feed, you need to process it. This will apply and update all your product information and generate a feed link and file that you can plug into GMC.

This can be copied and pasted from Plytix into your GMC account. Once your feed link is in your account, you can update and process your Channel to update products directly in GMC without needing to replace the link.

 

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What's next?

• Learn how to create a product data feed using Plytix’s Google Shopping Template
• Learn how to upload a CSV template into your CSV or XML channel 
• Learn how to define the data format for XML channels

 

 

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