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Blog
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Sunday, 24 July 2011 22:15 |
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The newsletter sent out at 12 noon Sunday the 24th of July 2011 (UK time)
Hi there
Im really sorry for the delay, we went away for a week, got back last wednesday and on thursday morning we found out my wife is pregant with our first child. We have been trying for over a year, so needless to say, sorting out JGB wasnt on the top of my list lol. But real life has landed again, and JGB is all finished and bug free on all the 12 test sites I have tried it on.
So at last, a little later than i thought, but the new version V6.4 has been released.
This version now has
- No memory usage now, it builds the feed line by line, not in the memory, so even really poor hosting should cope with large sites.
- Multi currency feeds, so you can export upto 20 different feeds at the same time with correctly calculated prices for that currency.
- Correct image paths for all SEF components (the last one had issues with SEF404)
- A much cleaner and simpler global config
- Product Title creation, so you can make your own titles (check the blog post below!)
- Products only show once now, no matter how many categories they are added to, so no duplicate error messages.
- Stock control default number control, so you always show all products have XX in stock.
- and 15 other little bugs has been fixed
There is detailed info here about the updates
http://www.joomlagooglebase.com/blog/whats-coming-in-v64-during-july-2011
We are going for a family meal now, and when i get back will be creating a detailed instruction page on how to use it with screen shots and instructions.
But for now, to use the multi country system, open the global config, and add in the currency code, such as USD, EUR, GBP etc. It will then create a feed with that code in it, so for example
all_products_usd.xml
all_products_gbp.xml
all_products_eur.xml
You will see them in your
/plugins/system/vmrss/...
directory.
Have a play and get HUGE amounts of more sales by selling on other continenants. But remember your products must be written in the language of that country. So if they are written in English, you cant send to France, as they MUST be written in french. If you dont agree with this, write to Google, i dont make the rules lol.
Please download and let me know what you would like in V6.5 :)
All the best
Ian
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Thursday, 07 July 2011 00:21 |
Over the next 2 weeks V6.4 will be released (release date aimed for the 13th of July 2011)
Multiple Currencies/Countries
You will be able create multiple feeds, one for each currency. Each feed will be in a specific currency and will recalculate each product price according to the currencies you choose. This means if you live in the UK, you can also upload to Google Merchant Centre aimed for the American market, which expands your market hugely.
Remember you can only submit to the current spoken language. So if the writing on your products are in English, then you can submit to USA, UK, and Australia. If you try to submit to France for example when the text is written in English, they will block your account.
Correct VAT price display
The price submitted to Google, must be the price that is displayed on the product page when you click on the link. If they check your site and find it to be different to what was submitted, they can block your account. So we have removed all VAT, Shopper group and other factors that can change this in the feed, to make sure it is always correct.
Stock Control Default Number Control
You will now be able to specify the default number in stock, rather than just being the "1" that is used at the moment.
Shipping Attributes Controls
At the moment the shipping system exports the full shipping attributes which is
Country (optional)
Region (optional - US only)
Service (optional)
Price (required)
But Region can only be used in the USA and nowhere else. So we are putting options into the global config to choose which fields you would like exporting.
Product Title Creation System
Many users have asked for a system which allows you to build up the product titles in a slightly different way. So I have added a system which allows you to create a new title by using other fields.
So for example imagine you have a "White Apple Iphone", you will choose from the three drop downs available
"Colour - Manufacturer - Product_Title". People have asked to make "Manufacturer - Product_title" and "Product_Title - GTIN", all these combinations will be possible now.
Products only to show once
The system years ago used to only show the products once, but then users complained and said it was bad for SEO etc, as if it was in multiple categories how could they include them. So we adjusted it to include it once for every category it is shown in, which in some cases meant you were seeing many more products and could double or more the size of the XML document. From now on, it doesn't matter how many times the product is included in different categories, it will only appear in the feed once. This will also help reduce the "Duplicate Entry" errors that Google keeps showing.
No more memory issues with feed creation
The feed has always built the feed in the memory of the server and then exported it as a file. We have now changed this, so it will build the feed one line at a time directly to the XML. This means it doesn't matter how big the feed is, it will never max out the memory on your hosting, how ever poor it is. This will be needed as the multiple feeds will destroy even the most hardened of dedicated servers if you have a lot of products.
Tidied up the Global Config
There were many parts left over from 5.X in the Global config that we just didn't have time to remove, so we have sent a bit of time getting this correct to make it user friendly. I have included a screen shot of it as it is now below, it may change slightly, but not by much.
We have removed many parts such as Shopper Groups, VAT as these are not needed now Google specifies the feed musty have prices as a visitor will see them as they land on the page not logged in. This is different from how it used to be in the Froogle and Google Base days where it wasnt as strict.
A few Bug Fixes
The last thing we have done is tidy up a few bug fixes. They wernt so much as bugs, but things that on most peoples hosting was fine, but in a few hosting environments had a small issue in one form or other, so we added these fixes to this release which will prevent these issues ever happening to anybody else.
If you have any thoughts on what you would like for JGB6.5, please let me know, and i will see if we can put it in for you :)
All the best
Ian |
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Saturday, 04 June 2011 13:07 |
As of V6.3, there is now a system which allows you to add in tags into the flypage (VirtueMart Product Page) which will show any of the content stored against it in the Joomla Google Base Component. To access this, add a tag in curly brackets. These are the tags you have available
{MPN}
{UPC}
{GTIN}
{Year}
{Expiration Date}
{Edition}
{Genre}
{Author}
Just add them like this {MPN} to your flypage in your VirtueMart templates, and it will show the content, this is amazing for SEO as the info that people search for in search engines, will show up.
All the best
Ian |
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Saturday, 04 June 2011 13:07 |
As of JGB V6.3, the "Colour" and "Size" attributes will now synchronise with VirtueMart, so what ever you type into JGB Colour or Size fields, will automatically be transferred over to VirtueMart, and also the other way around, so what ever you type into VirtueMart will now be transferred into JGB fields.
To do this VM -> JGB the fields must be name exactly "Size" and "Colour".
This means if you already have many colours and sizes in your items, you now don't need to type these in twice to the extension. |
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Monday, 14 March 2011 00:00 |
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On 3rd of May 2011 it will be mandatory to have 2 of the 3 above ID attributes for each product, or it will fail. There is an exception if the product is handmade "One of a kind"or apparel (clothing) products.
http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/changes-for-google-product-search.html
See our sections on the GTIN, MPN, or Brand attributes for more information. |
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Monday, 14 March 2011 00:00 |
New Sale Price Attributes [recommended] Shoppers everywhere love sales. To help make sure your sale price is included in Google Product Search, and for the right duration, Google are adding two attributes to the United States Product Search feed specification, “sale price” and “sale price effective date.” The attributes are recommended for the items that you have put on sale, but are not required. If you do include these new attributes, you should continue to provide the “price” attribute with the non-sale price from your website. You can learn more about these new attributes on the Sale Price page.
The official blog release is here.
http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/changes-for-google-product-search.html |
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Monday, 14 March 2011 00:00 |
Tax Information [required]: To ensure that shoppers have a seamless experience when they click through from Google Product Search to your site, Google are making tax information required for all feeds targeting the United States. As Google are doing with shipping cost information, we will be making this change on 6th of June 2011; after that date, product listings that do not include tax information at the account level, or in the “tax” attribute, may be rejected. You can learn more about providing tax information in our Tax Attribute page. (Please note that feeds targeted to countries other than the United States already require inclusion of VAT in the “price” attribute.)
Official Google release
http://googlemerchantblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/changes-for-google-product-search.html |
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All prices are charged in British Pounds, this option gives you an approximate currency change.
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Latest Versions
VirtueMart Froogle 6.6.3
(plugin)
Google Base 2.4.1
(Component)
Google Base Category 1.0
This extension adds
<g:google_product_category>
(Component/plugin)
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