SingleFeed, ahead of the curve (again), has launched full support of all the new Google Base required fields!

You can read more about the new Google Base field requirements here, http://groups.google.com/group/base-help-roadblocks/browse_thread/thread/ac53a9f6edec0f8b/d42e1cd9f9a66a97#d42e1cd9f9a66a97, and here, http://base.google.com/base/products.html.

The most onerous of the new requirements that Google Base has instituted is the required Expiration Date field. If a row in the product feed does not contain the expiration date, the row is INVALID. If a row in the product feed contains an expiration date greater than 31 days, again, INVALID.

SingleFeed to the rescue…

All feeds set up on SingleFeed for transmission to Google Base automatically are guaranteed to have the expiration date column set to 30 days from the time of upload. AND — every day, if you enable the auto-renew option, we will make sure that your expiration date for every one of your products is always updated to 30 days from the moment of the upload! (remember, we publish your feed — upload it — every day)

If you previously uploaded your SingleFeed to us without the Google Base required expiration date, or forget to include the expiration date within your file in the future, DON’T WORRY, we automatically correct your feed through the Correction Wizard and automatically keep your expiration date fresh — 30 days in the future.

More details about how it works…
There are 2 new SingleFeed columns within the SingleFeed file format…

• GOOGLE EXPIRATION DATE
• GOOGLE EXPIRATION DATE AUTO RENEW

The format of GOOGLE EXPIRATION DATE is YYYY-MM-DD. (e.g. 2007-03-12)

The format of GOOGLE EXPIRATION DATE AUTO RENEW is Y or N (e.g. Y) If you specify an expiration date, but leave out the auto-renew, we assume that you do not want us to update your expiration date for that product.

If you want us to automatically, daily, every time we submit your products to Google Base, to make sure that your expiration date is 30 days from today (keeping your content, fresh, alive, and valid) just set the Google Base Expiration Date Auto-Renew to ‘y’ (which, btw, stands for “yes, please auto-renew”).

Enjoy! (I know you will.)

Jeremy Horn
SingleFeed

Upload your new product feed or updates to your existing SingleFeed while you manage other aspects of your account (or even browse other websites)! 

The Background Upload (uniquely named) is available on the Upload menu on your Product page.  When this feature is selected, you can upload a file in the background, and receive progress updates in the foreground while you manage other areas of your Account and Engines — saving YOU time!

Click the link below to see a little video sample as to how to use and save time with the Background Upload feature:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD0WcHyJanI

We just released a new feature for the SingleFeed Correction Wizard.  Now, when you upload a large feed, you no longer have to stick around or check back in a little while to see if the Correction Wizard has completed the checking and fixing of your new SingleFeed.

The Correction Wizard will always send an email to your SingleFeed account email address with a summary of Correction Wizard results with quick links back to your Products page (and to fix any outstanding issues) immediately upon completion.

You will receive in your email:

• The total number of corrections made by the Correction Wizard in your feed. (my favorite bit of info)
• The total number of products identified.
• The total number of active products (no problems, active and live).
• The total number of problems (products with incomplete or erroneous information that you can easily fix by clicking the link within the email).

I know you will enjoy this new feature and timesaver.  And, stay tuned for more…

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
SingleFeed

The Products page at SingleFeed has recently seen many improvements, both in usability and performance.  One of these such improvements is with respect to the upload User eXperience (UX) — leading to a quicker and easier to follow upload process.
 
You will notice, right from the start, the upload no longer covers up other important product and action information on the Products page.  It smoothly reveals, when requested. 

Click here to see the Upload Start animation.

With many of the improvements on the backend you should also experience much shorter upload times than previously.  Just…    

1. select the file you would like to upload,
2. whether or not it should:
1. replace, or
2. be appended to your existing SingleFeed product list

…then you will see next, and cool improvement – our progress bar.

Click here to see a sample Upload-in-Progress.

Now, you can easily see how much time remains when you upload; and after you upload, what stage in processing your uploaded feed our Correction Wizard is up to. 
 
BTW, you will be seeing some awesome additions to the Correction Wizard very soon — with expanded automatic correction and assistance to save you even more time.
 
I also look forward to hearing feedback from your regarding your experience with this new technology.

Enjoy! 

Jeremy Horn
SingleFeed

I have been seeing a bunch of emails about the Google Custom Attributes since we launched the new feature yesterday, basically saying, “great that you have ‘em, but how in the world do I use them?”

Well, let me start off by saying Google Custom Attributes are a great way to improve your ranking (and, in turn, your feed performance) on Google Base… the more information you provide Google, the better.

Using Google Custom Attributes with SingleFeed is SUPER EASY!!

First,

• Think about what sort of custom fields would add value to your search listings (remembering, more is better, but do NOT spam Google Base with useless content).
• These field headings within the SingleFeed upload file are unique; each Google Custom Attribute always starts with ‘c:’ (that is see-colon), then includes the attribute, then ends with the type of custom attribute (string, integer, decimal, dateTime, location, URL, boolean). Following are some examples of possible Google Base Custom Attribute column headings. Your attributes will vary depending on what type of products you sell…

c:ski_size:integer
c:operating_temperature:decimal
c:fabric_type:string
c:gluten_free:boolean
c:store_department:string
c:store_location:location

Then,

• Just like any other product field, enter the information associated with each of your products under the field headings.

“Wait!” you are saying, “is that it?” Yep. We will be adding to the FAQ and blogging about additional ways you can consider using the Google Custom Attributes that will further improve your performance. For more info right now, go to the Google Base custom attribute help page.

A very cool thing that we also built into Google Custom Attributes is that when you do specify a Google Custom field, we automatically check and validate the field values to ensure they meet Google-specific requirements. If we happen to find an invalid field value, we will highlight it and provide you added assistance on the Product Edit page to easily fix.Also, remember, these Google Custom Attributes are special to Google and will only be included in your Google transmissions. No extra work, no worries.

P.S. We are working on updating the FAQ for you to provide more details, information about Google Custom Attribute field-types, and suggestions on how you will be able to make the most of Google Custom Attributes at SingleFeed.

P.P.S. Enjoy!

As you can tell we have just launched many cool new features and improvements on SingleFeed.

Among these new features, and particularly notable (you are taking advantage of one of these items right now), is our introduction of both a Blog and Forum. The goal of both of these is to…

• open communication with you, the merchants, users, and guests of SingleFeed
• discuss new ideas
• help with the everyday challenges of working with the various Shopping Comparison Engines (SCEs)
• improve and simplify the SingleFeed experience for everyone

Some of the other new features we just released this week are…

• robust Google Custom Attribute support
• a Correction Wizard for guided and automatic fixing of your feed
• support for large feed uploading (.ZIP)
• web application compatibility with FireFox and Internet Explorer 7
• MAJOR (and a few minor) usability and interface improvements
• and many more items that I will take the time to discuss in future postings

Over time, I will blog about these and other new features and how you can best maximize your use of them here at SingleFeed.

In addition to new site improvements as they are released, you may be wondering, what else you should expect to see here on this blog. This blog will also be used to…

1. inform the SingleFeed community of Shopping Comparison Engine (SCE) special offers, or other SCE events that are of interest, or may directly impact you
2. initiate discussions or thoughts on new concepts and approaches in UI design that will directly benefit the SingleFeed community

Often, as I blog you will hear me frequently say ‘we’ and ‘us’ and ‘the SingleFeed team.’ Here, at SingleFeed, we have established, and continue to grow, a stellar team. The majority of you already know Brian Smith. Now, with the major launch of today’s awesome suite of features, I would like to give a shout-out to Craig Ulliott (our head developer), the individual who developed the improvements I am mentioning today. Craig will be an active participant in our various Forums.