In case you are not sure what a Live Search Product Feed is, we will prepare a list of items to include in Microsoft’s product search engine.

1. First you will need an Windows Live account, which will also give you

• A Hotmail e-mail address good for using in irritating forms when you would rather not receive Spam.
• A Windows Live ID, required to sign into your Windows Live account.

Once you sign-up and navigate to Product Search, you can set your contact e-mail to an Alternate ID e-mail address.

2. Next you wil have to re-format your Google Products Feed document that you made last week into Microsoft’s preferred format.
   MS actually has a terrific section in their Help Center on accomplishing this.

• Open your Google Products Excel document (not the txt). Change the category headings to the following:

• Make sure your columns are organized with  these headings (no spaces or special characters) in this exact order:

1. offername
2. actionurl
3. regularprice
4. referenceimageurl
5. offerdescription.

• Save as a (.txt) file.

3. Go to your Product Upload page.

• On the Catalogs page click "create new."
• Fill in all required fields- catalog title, select category and select file type (Product Search Text)

The file type Google Base compatible format (.txt) has yet to work for me, I always select the Product Search txt and "Tab" as the delimiter, despite that the document is exactly a Google Base document. You’re welcome to try and see if it’ll work for you!

• Select "upload through browser" Enter a catalog description (1000 characters or less).
• Save.

4. Next you will upload your file.

• Click "Upload Now."
• Choose the txt file you created.
• Click "Upload"
• Click "Done."
• Go back to the main catalogs tab where you will see your new feed under the status of "Processing." Processing can take anywhere from 5mins to 36hrs.
•  Once you see "Published" in the status, you’re done!

5. Check your Windows Live Feed for errors.

• After your file is published to re-visit the catalog details in case of errors.
• Click on the catalog name from the main menu.
• If there are any "Catalog Upload Errors" you’ll see them towards the bottom.

Once the file is published you may find that some listings get thrown back for various errors. Microsoft is smart enough to segment out the error ridden entries and leave the good entries intact and searchable. Windows Live will list each specific error and suggest how to remedy the situation.

That’s all for now!

The post Create a Microsoft Windows Live Product Feed appeared first on Portent.

Each listing is a product that was submitted by a merchant. Listing your own products is free, so why not try it out?

Here’s how to set up your very own Google Product Feed.

• Go to www.google.com/base, click on "Data Feed" and login with your Google Account login.
• Click on "create another account to manage" enter the name of your site, display URL and optional description.

Next we’ll create the feed.

• Create a new Excel spreadsheet with these headings:
  1. Title
  2. Description
  3. Price
  4. Image link
  5. Link

These are the required attributes. After you get comfortable with product feeds you’ll be able to choose from many optional attributes too as well as additional information such as brand names, condition, ISBN or UPC codes.

• If you USE Google Analytics, add a UTM code on the back end of all of the destination URLs. Otherwise, GA will attribute all sales and visits to Google organic search results.

I suggest using &utm_source=google+products. You can create your own tag if you prefer. This tag will also pick up the keywords that the user used while searching Google Shopping.

The easiest wat to add this code is to create a simple Excel formula.

1. Go to a cell in your URL + Code column. (I’m using F17)
2. Type = and the cell of the destination URL (=E17)
3. Add  &"&utm_source=google+products"
4. Your finished formula will be =E17&"&utm_source=google+products

   
   

5. Copy the cell with your formula and paste in into to the rest of the cells in the same column.
6. You should now have two columns of destination URLs, one without the code and one with the code.
7. Select cells in the the column of new destination URLs, copy them then paste special as values on top of the original destination URLs.
8. Delete the column with the formulas you just made.
9. Save, using File – Save As, your document as a tab delimited text (.txt) file.

Voila! Your product feed is ready to upload into Google Shopping Search.

• Return to your new Google Base account.
  1. Click New Data Feed.
  2. Create a name for your file.
  3. Select the appropriate category for your products.
  4. Click Register data feed and continue to formatting instructions. 
     
• Now that you have registered your feed you are ready to upload your list of products!
  1. Click on Manual: upload file.
  2. Select your .txt file on your computer.
  3. Click "upload".

     

Google will now upload and process your list of products. It can take as little as 5 minutes or as long as 48 hours depending on the size and complexity of your file. Wait at least a day before you search for your products and store.

• Troubleshooting If your file is rejected, there will be an error message as to why. One thing to check is your settings. If you followed the above instructions, these should be what your settings look like if you click on "edit" next to the file name:

  

Next Time: Taking this same file and making it work for MSN Live Search Products!

The post Create a Google Product Search Feed appeared first on Portent.