Making Your Catalog Searchable by Google

Submitting information about your products to Google Base will make your catalog searchable on Google Product Search, Google Maps and on the main Google web search.

To submit a catalog to Google Base means to upload an XML file containing the information about your products to your Google Base account. Creating such a file does not require any XML knowledge because Plesk Sitebuilder will automatically convert all information from your catalog into RSS 2.0 XML file fully compatible with Google Base requirements.

In this XML file, Plesk Sitebuilder puts the following information about each your product: product name, the category a product belongs to, full product description, price, quantity on stock, color, other options (size, etc.), and a link to the product page. Regular product options, such as Apparel size, and Shoe size (US, UK, EU), are automatically indexed with the corresponding Google Base attribute (g:size). If you have specified some custom options for your products (such as country of origin, dimensions, manufacturer/brand name, etc.), and wish to make your catalog searchable by them as well, you will need to index these options manually as described in Indexing Custom Product Options.

To submit your catalog to Google Base, use the Bulk Upload option. Google Base allows you to upload up to 100000 items per bulk upload, with a maximum file size of 20MB. If you wish to upload a larger file, contact Google Base for assistance. Prior to uploading information to Google Base, we recommend to make sure that your online catalog information complies with the Google Base Program Policies.

To upload your catalog to Google Base, you need a Google account. If you do not have a Google account yet, click here to register one.

To submit your catalog to Google Base:

1. Open your site preview and go to the online store page.
2. Right-click the RSS link on the catalog page and select Save Target As... (in Internet Explorer), or Save Link As... (in Mozilla Firefox) from the context menu and save the file with .xml extension.

   

   Note: In Internet Explorer, specify any arbitrary name in the File name field, and leave the default option XML Document selected in the Save as type field.

   In Mozilla Firefox, specify the file name in format filename.xml in the File name field, and select All Files from the Save as type field. Having saved the file, make sure that it keeps the .xml extension.

3. Open the Bulk Upload Instructions page on Google Base web site and click the Get started: register and submit your bulk upload link at the bottom of the page.
4. On the About Me page, you will be asked to provide the Display name, Description (optional) and Website URL (optional) to be displayed on your Google Base account page.

   By default, the Display name field contains your e-mail address specified at Google account registration. You may leave this default value as is, leave the optional fields blank and proceed. If later you wish to specify or edit this information, go to the Settings tab of your Google Base account page, specify the information and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

5. Click Next to continue.
6. On the Specify a Bulk Upload page:
   • Enter any arbitrary name for the uploaded file in the File name field. Under this name the file will appear on the Bulk Upload tab of your Google Base account page.

     Note: The file name must also end with the .xml extension. The file name may contain Latin characters and numbers only, and may not contain spaces.

   • Select the Item type (the type of items in your online catalog) from the provided drop-down box, or specify your custom item type.
7. Click Register bulk upload file and continue to formatting instructions at the bottom of the page.
8. On the Format your Products page, click I'm done formatting my file. Continue to upload.

   All basic formatting of your catalog is done automatically by Plesk Sitebuilder. For instructions on specifying RSS attributes for additional product options (such as size, country of origin and other parameters), read section Indexing Custom Product Options.

9. On the file upload page, click Browse, locate the catalog file in your local file system and click Upload and process this file.

   The Google Base dashboard will show status Processing bulk upload file for your file.

   Items submitted via bulk upload are indexed within 24 hours. After the file is successfully processed, the file status turns to Success, denoting that your catalog items are now searchable by Google.

   If the page shows status Bulk upload failure, click the See details and get help link for troubleshooting instructions. Try fixing the issue and re-uploading the file (by clicking the delete this file link and repeating the bulk upload procedure).