The Shopp default RSS/XML/Google Base solution was not enough.

I needed to have a Google Base feed that featured all the store products. For some reason, the recommended process wasn’t working for me. It was either showing only recent products, or it wasn’t working at all.  Here’s how I fixed it:

This code will show you the way to full indexing. Trust it. Feel it.

Add the following code before case "newproducts-rss": (near line 1295) in Shopp.php:

// This adds sitemap functionality for all products
case "catalog-rss":
	$CatalogProducts = new CatalogProducts(array('show' => 50000));
	header("Content-type: application/rss+xml; charset=utf-8");
	echo shopp_rss($CatalogProducts->rss());
	exit();
	break;

Once you add that, you will be able to see a RSS feed of your entire catalog by visiting yoursite.com/your-shop-location/index.php?shopp_lookup=catalog-rss

If the RSS feed is empty, try commenting out (add // before it) the following code near line 484 in /core/model/Category.php: $item = apply_filters('shopp_rss_item',$entry,$product);

Hope this helps!

Bis man es geschafft hat eine Feed Datei zu erzeugen, die Google Base ohne wenn und aber akzeptiert, vergeht meist eine ganz erhebliche Zeit. Aber nur weil Google Base jetzt endlich die Artikel eingelesen hat, heißt das noch lange nicht, dass die Daten auch wirklich optimal aufbereitet sind. Das gilt insbesondere im deutschsprachigen Raum, wo Google sich ja überlegt hat, die relevanten Datenstrukturen ins Deutsche zu übersetzen.

Glücklicherweise liefert Google Base dann doch noch ein passendes Werkzeug, auch wenn es eher versteckt ist und bei einem automatischen Import selten zum EInsatz kommt. Verborgen ist dieses ‘Juwel’ sowohl auf der Seite “Aktive Artikel” als auch auf der Seite “Inaktive Artikel”, versteckt hinter dem Punkt “Bearbeiten…”. Wechselt man hier auf die “Artikel bearbeiten” Seite, so zeigt einem Google Base den jeweiligen Artikel an.

Dabei heißt es jetzt genau hinzuschauen: Felder die von Google Base bei Import als “bekannte Attribute” erkannt wurden, werden unveränderlich angezeigt. Felder bei denen man den Namen in der Maske verändern kann wurden von Google Base als “Custom Attribute”, also als vom Benutzer beliebig zu definierendes Attribut erkannt. Es ist wohl selbstredend, dass solche Felder in der Relevanz hinter den “bekannten Attributen” zurückstehen.

Als Beispiel soll hier das früher verwendete Attribut ‘description’ dienen, welches ja heute ‘g:beschreibung’ heißt. Sollte die Maske ein Eingabefeld mit dem Text “description” enthalten, so ist diese Attribut z.B. nicht optimal exportiert, denn die Beschreibung sollte eigentlich unter “Beschreibung” erscheinen.

Die meisten Leute machen sich sicherlich keine Gedanken darüber, woher die Daten kommen, wenn ihnen bei einer Google-Suche auch Produkte mit dazugehörigen Preisen angeboten werden. Die Antwort darauf heißt Google Base. Nun scheinen die Entwickler von Google Base jedoch ein etwas seltsames Völkchen zu sein, wie wäre sonst folgendes zu erklären?

Google Base ist ein Produkt das weltweit Betreibern von eCommerce Systemen zur Verfügung steht. Als Schnittstelle dient ein Datei-basierter Datenabgleich der entweder CSV Dateien oder eben auch RSS-basierte XML Dateien erwartet. Nun haben sich die Jungs von Google gerade bei letzterem etwas sehr Interessants ausgedacht: sie haben die XML Tags lokalisiert, d.h. XML Elemente die im englischen Original noch <g:price> heissen müssen für einen deutschen Shop auf <g:preis> geändert werden. Das erschwert nicht nur die Entwickling von Modulen die überall eingesetzt werden können, es scheint auch die Google Entwickler etwas zu verwirren. Schließlich definiert das RSS Format bereits einige Elemente, diese jedoch auf Englisch. Ein entsprechnder Block für einen Artikel sah also bis vor kurzem so aus:

<item>
    <id>123</id>
    <title>Mein Arikel</title>
    <g:preis>1.95</g:preis>
</item>

Seit rund zwei Wochen funktioniert das so jedoch nicht mehr, der Import solcher Dateien schlug einfach fehl und Google hüllte sich in Schweigen. Zum Glück wurde aber mittlerweile herausgefunden, wie man das Problem lösen kann. Ich denke der Mitstreiter aus dem Google Base Forum hat sicherlich einige Zeit gebraucht um die folgende Lösung des Problems zu finden:

<item>
    <id>123</id>
    <title>Mein Arikel</title>
    <c:titel>Mein Arikel</c:titel>
    <g:preis>1.95</g:preis>
</item>

Der Trick ist das Hinzufügen von <c:titel>, also der deutschsprachigen Variante des Titels. Bei dem “c” Namespace handelt es sich eigentlich um den Namespace für “Custom Attribute”, also solche Felder die vom Betreiber der eCommerce Seite definiert werden können. Mir scheint als wäre das Einlesen der Daten auf Google Base somit a) nicht Namespace fähig und b) erschreckend wenig robust und ungetestet.

Moral von der Geschichte: Lokalisierung von Datenformat ist mindestens genauso unsinnig wie der Übersetzung von Programmiersprachen.

(Update: Ein paar weitere Tipps gibt es noch in meinem Post “Importierte Google Base Feeds überprüfen”)

I’ve posted before about the new google property map search and I still find this new development very exciting

however… I also have some concerns for agents if it takes off

Despite some agents dislike for payments to property portals, there is one problem they do keep at bay. In the UK we have significantly less private sellers than other countries, largely down to the fact that the major portals that provide the best route to market when selling your home, do not allow private sellers to upload their properties (In other countries they do).

So if agents were to jump on the ‘google bus’ and begin to give power to its listing mechanism and its searching power, is it possible they will be building another beast that cannot be tamed? Google will not stop private sellers from listing on their maps function as they have no concern over what data is on their site, so long as it generates searches.

Perhaps Agents and Property Portals have a shared challenge here and should work together to find ways of ensuring that the best routes to market stay restricted to the professionals.

Google has expanded its property/real estate listings and added extra search functionality for users to find property listings in Google Maps – Meaning that the main property portals now have a rising competitor that receives much more ‘eyeballs’ than they do.

It offers an updated and more comprehensive version of the real estate listings that Google Maps has shown before, along with a new search tool. The results are coming directly from real estate brokerages and agents, many of whom upload listings into Google Base as part of their on-line marketing (no reason why UK agents shouldn’t use Google base?). Google is also getting listings from sources such as Homes & Land and The Real Estate Book and similar sites that advertise listings for participating real estate professionals.

 There’s a basic search functionality to search by price range, beds and bathrooms. On the map, each individual listing, whether a property for sale or rent, appears like a business listing does in Google Maps normal search. Users can click the red icon/dot for more information about the property; they can get directions, save the listing to My Maps, or send the listing to someone else via email, phone, car, or GPS. My search above is property in Leicester and already there is a fair amount of property in LE1.

Google is launching real estate listings in response to the rise in property related queries to Google (35% in the year to Feb 2009).

Whilst it remains to be seen if any of the big the UK property portals decide to team up with and feed to Google, there is a growing threat to the world of on-line property marketing models that charge agents to list and had previously had it all their way.

Estate Agents should see this as free marketing and take advantage of a way to differentiate you from your competitors. USP’s are hard to come by at the moment so why not gather some stats, use Google Base to upload, point it back to your own web site and sell it on listings as another extra you offer.

There is a lot of fuss in the real estate blogosphere about an interpretation by the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of REALTORS® (MIBOR) of the so-called “anti-scraping” rule in the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) Multiple Listing Policy.

The policy states the following:

Participants must protect IDX information from misappropriation by employing reasonable efforts to monitor and prevent “scraping” or other unauthorized accessing, reproduction, or use of the MLS database.

This rule is intended to keep websites from extracting listings from NAR member websites (such as metrobrokers.com) and re-displaying the listings on their website, passing it off as their own data. We all agree this is a good rule, as it keeps others from stealing our listing data.

However, MIBOR has interpreted the rule to classify search engines like Google as “Scrapers,” and they are forcing all Indianapolis brokers and agents to prevent Google from indexing their websites. At the NAR mid-year conference, NAR initially rejected MIBOR’s ruling, but two days later accepted a referral back to committee, which is kind of like an appeal.

Now we have to wait until the November NAR conference to learn how this will play out. This ruling can affect everyone in real estate across the country.

Keep reading to understand the true impact of this policy.

What’s the Big Deal?

Let’s take a look at what the search engines are doing that has MIBOR in an uproar. We will focus on Google for the sake of simplification.

There are two approaches Google is taking to indexing real estate listings: Google Base, and Google Search.

• Google Base has been classified as a data aggregator, a la Trulia.com and Homes.com. It accepts listings from brokerages who own them, and allows the public to search by features and location.
• Google Search is the front-end search site everyone knows. It crawls websites all over the world and takes snapshots of the content on those sites, presenting a summary to search users. It also crawls broker and agent websites, indexing the listings available there.

Google’s intent is to drive users to the websites that own the content.  However, when the user gets so much data from the snapshot that they do not need to visit the content owners’ website, it can become a form of plagiarism. This is what MIBOR wants to avoid.

Here is what a user sees when searching for real estate via Google Search:

Click for larger size

As you can see, it is no replacement for a full featured listing search from an agent or broker site. It’s a true snapshot, in this case even showing data on the next listing on the page. The user will click through for more information, and the content owner will get a visitor.

Here is a screenshot of a Google Base search result:

Click for larger size

Now this is a full featured listing, and the data is complete enough to prevent the user from visiting the original site.  However, Google Base has the permission of the listing broker to provide this information, as the only way Google Base gets listing data is from feeds directly from the broker. This is exactly what Trulia.com, Homes.com and others do.

Digging Deeper

However, is that really what Google is doing, using listings with the permission of the owner? After reading the Google Base for Real Estate FAQ, I’m not so sure. Here is a quote.

Google collects listings in two ways: by crawling the web, and by receiving uploads through Google Base.

What? So, Google Base can crawl my site, take my data, allow a complete search of all my listings, and never refer the user back to my site? This is beyond simple indexing, and can be classified as a “scraper.”

Is It Scraping or Indexing?

Scraping data is literally a form of information theft. Scrapers present the data as their own, and they do not drive consumers back to the websites of the true data owners (the brokers/agents). The search engines are not supposed to scrape data, but instead “index” it. This means they store enough of the data in their databases to present the consumer with a snapshot, but when the user clicks for more information, they are redirected back to the website of the true data owner.

There is simply no reasonable way the NAR policy can be interpreted to include indexing. Google is walking a fine line with Google Base, but a blanket blackout rule regarding search engines is not the answer. A stern warning from NAR might solve this problem for us.

Worst Case Scenario

Let’s explore the possible situation where NAR accepts MIBOR’s interpretation of Google Search as a scraper, and the country’s MLS services adopt the amended rule. We at Metro Brokers, and all other brokers with search engines, would have to add code to our website to keep Google from indexing our pages containing listings.

Now, would Trulia.com, Realtor.com, and other websites also have to do this? They are not NAR members, remember. If they do not, then they will be the only listing data providers indexed by the search engines. Thus, the brokers and agents will lose all of that traffic (over 295 million searches are done per day on Google) and web consumers will never get to the local sites. How long do you think before those aggregators start selling leads generated off of our listings right back to us?

Who does this ruling benefit? The agents? No. The brokers? Nope. The consumers? No way. The only people invited to this party would be internet companies who are not even in real estate.

What You Can Do

The best thing we can do is to let NAR officials know how we feel about this issue. When they vote in November, they need to know that we don’t want to stonewall the search engines, and that this interpretation of the rule in fact undermines agents and brokers.

GoogleIsNotAScraper.com has put together a petition for NAR. You can go sign that petition, in the hopes that NAR will listen to its members.

If you find Google Base has indexed your website listing data, you can file a request to remove the listing. However, this does not prevent Google from continuing the practice. This falls to NAR.

More Information

Visit the blog of Red Door Real Estate’s Paula Henry to get the background of this story. Her broker was the one originally charged with “allowing” Google to “scrape” their listings. Give her your support; she has done a great service to the real estate community.

Google Base:  Post it on Base. Find it on Google.

Google Base is a free Google service that helps you publish virtually any kind of information — be it your latest riveting screenplay or a listing for your slightly dented 1989 Honda Accord — on Google Base or other Google properties.
To post an item to Google Base:

1. Visit Google Base.
2. Click One at a time.
3. Select the type of information you’re submitting (or create your own item type).
4. Click Next >.
5. After you’ve entered and reviewed your item’s formatting, click Publish. Within a few hours, your item will be visible to the world.

Your item will fall into one of several categories based on its content. This category determines which Google property will display your item. For example, your screenplay and robot schematics may appear on Google Base, and your humble Honda may appear on Google Product Search. Learn more about Google Base.

Basics

+ View Website

So Google Base worked out great! I setup a data feed as a CSV file using all the optional parameters I could and added a handful of profiles to test it out. Within 24 hours the listings were up on Google Base alread which you can see here http://base.google.com/base/s2?a_n0=personals&a_y0=9&authorid=5622309&keywords=free%20online%20dating and it worked out great! No idea if that will help drive traffic or not but everything helps.

Free press release distribution has emerged as one of the most effective web marketing strategies for law firms, software companies, non-profits, media companies, and political groups. Could your company use a boost in web traffic through free press release distribution?

R3R Internet Marketing and Consulting hires me to write articles and SEO press releases to be distributed on the Web. Over the last three months, we have developed an effective strategy to distribute press releases. I will share with you our insights.

There are hundreds of free press release distribution sites. Through trial and error, I have come up with a reliable list of sites. The most important feature for a free site to have is a link back to your company page. Many sites offer links with anchor text for a price that can range in the hundreds. With free press release sites, you are always weighing Page Rank, link capability for SEO, and ease of use.

Here are some sites I regularly use to syndicate content on the Web.

Google Base
Google Base has all the features without any of the hassle. You can create press releases with images and anchor text. Your press release will appear in Google Search Results, but it may not receive the same level of immediate exposure as it would on a press release site. Remember it’s free!

Online PR News
Online PR News is the brainchild of press release guru Christine O’Kelly. I learned how to write press releases from Christine. Here’s the best introduction to writing press release that you will find on the Web.

At Online PR News, you can submit a free press release with images and a link back but no anchor text. If you want anchor text links in your press release, it costs an additional $6. But in the grand scheme of things, these small fees are well worth it for press release syndication. Compare the $6 to what PRWeb.com charges, upwards of $200. Online PR News has a Page Rank of 3, but sometimes with a free press release site you have to weigh the different variables. Because it is easy to use, and provides all features for only six dollars, I recommend it.

See Nation
See Nation has a good response time. That’s another variable to weigh. Some press release sites, such as ExactRelease.com, you may never hear from them after you submit a press release and your content won’t appear anywhere on the site either. Others, like DBusinessnews.com, you may have to more aggressively follow up your submission with, say, an email to the webmaster. Whatever the case, SeeNation excels in rapid response for approval. Features include linkback and Page Rank is 3.

Press Release Point
Most press release sites don’t look pretty and this one is no exception. But the site is more reliable than most and you can place links with anchor text into the content. Here is a press release I wrote for one of my clients featured on Press Release Point. Page Rank on Press Release Point is 4.

PR Log
PR Log is another reliable free press release distribution site. You can’t use anchor text but you can use urls. Also the site layout is better than most and it takes images. Here’s another press release I wrote for one of my clients on PR Log. Page Rank is 6.

PR-USA
One thing you will notice right off the bat with PR-USA is that the urls are not optimized. This is a disadvantage for a free press release distribution site because most likely the content will not show up in major search engines, but only within the directory on the site. Nonetheless, anchor text and links are offered in the free press release. Page Rank is 5.

i-Newswire
One last free press release site I recommend is i-Newswire. The site layout is attractive and you can login to your account and maintain the locations of your published releases. One drawback is that you can’t use links or anchor text within the body of the release. However, you are given a linkback at the end of the press release. At least one linkback is absolutely necessary when considering free press release distribution sites. Beware, because some free pr sites, such as free-press-release.com and openpr.com do not allow even one linkback.

You might ask, “Well, then what is the point?” You can add your email, and that’s all. If you want to see what the sample press release for my client looks like on i-Newswire, here it is. Page Rank is 3.

One of my suggestions when considering free press release distribution is not to use automated syndication services. This can come back to haunt you when Google identifies your press release as spam. It is best to pick ten sites and publish to them on a regular basis manually. Or better yet, hire me to do it for you.

Another excellent tutorial for SEO press release is by my press release mentor Christine O’Kelly, on Slide Share. Between the first tutorial and the second, you will learn everything you need to know about writing and submitting press releases.

Lastly, here is a big list of free press release sites.

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For those who have recently faced this error during product uploading to Google Base, please note that you have to add an additional attribute <g:id> with each of your entries. Google has recently added more documentation on this:

http://code.google.com/apis/base/starting-out.html#products

Thanks.

–
Rupom

I’ve been adding some of my zazzle products and designs to google base (or GB).  But GB can be used to list almost anything such as news, events, recipes,  real estate, etc.

Exceptionally easy if your internet platform has an RSS feed; as many e-commerce stores and blog do these days.

GB is an opportunity to extend your marketing reach.  It is just like a huge online classified ad section, except you can have your products included without cost, in the search results at http://shopping.google.com

For such a useful tool, many have found it difficult to work out how to get their xml data feeds to successfully list many products at once.

If you need any assitance finding the zazzle rss feed, converting the rss feed into a xml product file and uploading it without errors to GB.

You will find it at my squidoo lens with guides, tutorials and information to increase the visibility of your products and services by optimising optional attributes.

http://www.squidoo.com/Google-Base-xml

Suzy Molloy

I travelled from my home in Liverpool to Manchester today to attend an SEO course at the Manchester Digital Development Agency.

I got lost going there (Where the F*** is the A6143?) and had to ask a very astute and helpful young man in the Crown Plaza hotel for directions. The lad gave me a map and marked my route up with a highlighter pen and I found the place in 5 minutes. So thanks mate whoever you are!! He was Danish I think!

The Course was Delivered by a guy called Jan Klin. Jan delivered a fantastic course and I learned a great deal. He has a very easy manner and a great sense of humour (well, he is a scouser after all). If you get a chance book yourself on to one of his courses. He will teach you a ton of stuff.

One thing in particular that interested me was Google WebMaster Tools. The tools let you do keyword optimisation and also let you optimise your content for different countries among other things. I couldn’t help thinking that lot’s of people who make software like wordtracker must be a bit nervous. There’s also great stuff you can do with Google Maps.

As well as all the on-page optimisation stuff and Website auditing, Jan explained how Pay-Per-Click works. If you have something to sell online it wouldn’t hurt to throw £50 at it and see what happens. I couldn’t help thinking that you could sit there all day long clicking on a competitor’s link and cranking up his bill. I think I read somewhere that Google can spot this kind of dastardly behaviour though! A real no-brainer for anyone selling stuff online is Google Base. That can get you pretty high up the SERPS.

Anyway, after a cracking course I got well and truly lost again on the way home. I really must invest in a SatNav system!

Chingchang-Chinese baut seine Kooperation mit Google weiter aus. Ab sofort sind alle lieferbaren Produkte bei Google Base sichtbar und abrufbar. Demnächst wird auch der Einkauf direkt dort möglich sein. Bislang steht dieser Service leider nur in den U. S. A. zur Verfügung.

Lets face it, to get business you need to advertise, but when your working on a shoestring budget its difficult to do.  I have had some success with the following:

Really Smart Deals,  you need to surf a few times each week, but you can list each of your websites or products up to 3 times for 31 days at a time.  A few things are prohibited so you will need to read the terms.  The site also offers paid spots for text and banner advertising at reasonable rates.

Twitter and Facebook.  Both are fairly easy to set up, and you can list your websites or items from your websites on each.  Again read the terms of use to make sure you aren’t doing something that is frowned upon.  Both also offer paid advertising again reasonably priced, but I am doing okay with the free stuff right now.

Submitt Express will submit your website to around 30 different search engines.  The only drawback, you must include a link to submitt express on your website.  So unless you have extra pages that allow links, this may not be for you.   Also, after first listing your site, you will be hit with some confirmation spam emails.  After confirming you can always opt out of these.

Forums are always great.  If the place that hosts your site has forums, post in them.  Even if its only to say hi, or that your running a sale.  You will get hits just from people who see the shop name and wonder what your selling.  I’ve  had a few sales from these clicks.

Business cards.  You can print them yourself with your computer or have them made up for you.  Then next time someone asks what you do, hand them a card with you webaddress on it.   Cheap 4×5 flyers are also a good way to advertise.  Hand them out at shows realated to what you sell (check with the promoter first, most will have a table upfront where you can leave advertising materials), if you do shows hand them out to customers, or potential customers, letting them know that they can find more of your merchandise online.

Word of mouth.  Don’t knock it.  You would be amazed at how many people have visited my websites and ended up purchasing items, because a friend told them I had the widget they were looking for, but I only sold online.

Craigslist is also a good way to get your name out there.  Just remember to abide by the posted rules and don’t spam the boards. 

Blogging.   It never hurts to blog about things you know about, and even things you know nothing about. 

Signature lines in your emails.   I have links to all three websites that I currently sell from in mine.    Everytime I post on a message board or chat room, they get included. 

And don’t forget to take advantage to  the links sections in any groups or forums you belong to.  Many will let you link to your website if it is related to the group.  Some will let you link even if it isn’t related to the group.

Upload your items to google base.  If you use paypal, include a link to your website in their shops section. 

There are any number thnigs that can be done on the cheap that can pay off big in the long run.  These are just a few that I have been using with a bit of success.

Google has announced yet another update fro Gmail Labs. This new facility called “filter import / export” helps us to transfer filters to another account. With this feature, you can use your Gmail to handle bundles of incoming mail.
Filter import/export is available today in Gmail Labs, which can help you to work with bulk filters rather than selecting a single mail at a time.

Click to send SMS via Gmail

You can turn it on from the Labs Tab under Settings and from the settings >Filters page you can download a file containing some or all of your filters or upload a file to create a set of filters all in one go.
With this feature, you can do the followings :
•You can download all your filters and if you are using POP or IMAP to get backup copies of your mail messages now it is possible to include your filters too.
•You can share your filters with other people.
•You can temporarily “Disable” a set of filters by exporting them and delete them as well.
•If you want to enable it again just re-import them from the file you exported. [ More ]

O Google Base é um lugar onde você pode facilmente submeter todos os tipos de conteúdo, online ou offline que o Google o hospedará e fará pesquisável. Você pode descrever qualquer ítem que colocar com “atributos”, que vão ajudar as pessoas a achá-lo quando pesquisarem no Google Base. De fato, baseado na relevância dos seus artigos, estes podem também ser incluídos no índice principal da busca do Google e em outros produtos do Google como Froogle, Google Base e Google Local. A idéia do site é: “Se você tem informação que quer compartilhar com outros, mas não tem certeza de como ser visto por um determinado público, o Google Base é para você”

3.4.1. Fatos sobre o Google Base

• Custo: Grátis
• Tipos de itens aceitados: Todos os tipos de informação online ou offline e imagens
• Linguagem: O Google Base está atualmente somente em Inglês
• Alcance: Os itens que você submeter ao Google Base podem ser achados nele próprio e dependendo da sua reelevância, talvez também apareça nos outros produtos Google como o próprio Google, Google Product Search que não é um serviço novo mas sim o novo nome do Froogle e o Google Local.
• Porque é diferente: O Google Base permite adicionar atributos que melhor descrevam seu conteúdo de modo que os usuários possam facilmente encontrá-lo. Os atributos específicos mais populares tornam-se mais frequentes são sugeridos a outros usuários a enviar os mesmos itens. Similarmente, artigos que se transformam mais populares vão aparecer como sugestões de tipos no menu drop down Choose an existing item type.

3.4.2. Que tipos de informações podem ser hospedadas

As possibilidades de usos são virtualmente infinitas dentres as quais podemos incluir:

• Receitas culinárias;
• Oferecer produtos como carros de segunda mão;
• Fazer Propaganda;
• Promover eventos;
• Teses de mestrado;
• Sequências de DNA;
• Ofertas de trabalho
• Fotos

3.4.3. Acesse o:

• Google Base (em inglês)
• Blog Oficial (em inglês)
• Sobre o Google Base, Screenshots, FAQ (em inglês)

In Deutschland ist eine neue Jobbörse an den Start gegangen. Google Base ist da!

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