Summary of the new changes

• Availability field is now required for all products
• Products must be mapped to a category in the Google taxonomy (this is in addition to the existing product category field)
• Images are now required for all products
• Products classified as apparel now require fields that describe the size/color/gender variations

Mapping Product Categories to the Google Taxonomy

The categories interface has changed in 6.1.7 to accommodate the new Google requirements (Required from Sept 22,2011).

Bulk mapping is now enabled for all categories by default, and works in the same way as the Shopping Comparison mapping:

Google's full taxonomy of product categories is loaded in to all 6.1.7  stores by default, and appears in the following selection popup:

Categories with active Google product mappings are now marked with a Google icon in the main listing table. Unmapped categories display a grayed out icon if one or more mappings exist. If no mappings exist, the column is hidden:

The mapping for an individual category can be edited or removed in the Google Product Search tab on the edit form:

Mapping Products to the Google Product Search Feed

Due to Google's very specific validation requirements for various individual product types, it is not possible to have a single interface for bulk assigning products to the Google Product Search feed.

The mapping for an individual product can be edited or removed in the Google Product Search tab on the edit form:

The content of these fields must meet the rules specified in the Google Products Feed Specification. The exact validation requirements depend on the country selected for the feed. Currently, the fields here are optional, and will not be validated until the XML feed itself is generated.

If the selected category has not yet been mapped to the Google taxonomy, a prompt will appear, linking to the category mapping popup.

Generating the XML Feed

The master feed for the store is generated from the Marketing > Google Product Search Feed popup. Google now requires a specific country to be selected for the feed:

When a country is selected, the generated XML feed can be downloaded from the provided link. A URL is also provided to enable automatic updates: