An error occurred while retrieving your product feed. Please try again later.

Also, how do we tell the plugin where the 2,000 already existing GTIN numbers are in our website? It doesn’t have a place to map the field.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by joyryde.

Hi @joyryde,

Thanks for reaching out to us about the Google Listings & Ads plugin. I’m happy to help!

We are testing your plugin against the one we’ve used for the last 5 years, but so far it’s not going well! After setting it up, clicking on the feed tab shows this:

Yeah, that’s definitely not a good start! Let me explain what I think is happening:

The product feed page does quite a bit of processing and because of that it might take a while for it to be displayed when the number of synced products is large. It’s probable that the script has timed out, which we’ve seen in some cases with similar error messages.

Those cases were resolved by increasing the maximum execution time of PHP scripts by setting the max_execution_time config and also increase the memory_limit settings in the php.ini file.

It might also help if you have a look at the server logs if the same error appears after making these changes.

Also, how do we tell the plugin where the 2,000 already existing GTIN numbers are in our website? It doesn’t have a place to map the field.

Great question! It should be possible to enable any of the required fields like GTIN on the plugin settings page at WooCommerce >Settings >Product Feeds. For information about how that works, please check out our Google Product Feed – Setting product data doc.

Please let us know how that goes or if you need further help!

Hi,

There is no WooCommerce >Settings >Product Feeds.

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17280547?key=296577a559b0cf3ec9135664ae36ea92

Hi @joyryde

Apologies that the resource that was shared before isn’t for Google Listing & Ads, it’s for a different plugin: https://woocommerce.com/products/google-product-feed/

With Google Listing & Ads, it appears that it’s not possible currently to detect existing GTIN and map those with the products synced by Google Listing & Ads.

I hope that helps!

OK, I had to manually export all 2500 products from our website, then manually copy the BRAND, GTIN, and SKU over to the fields in your plugin from our old plugin, but there are still some pretty big issues…perhaps you can address them?

1. All other Google Shopping plugins map the product categories on woocomerce to the correct product categories on Google Shopping, which is required by Google. Your plugin has nowhere at all to map these categories. Google flags every single product you are sending them as missing the category, which they do not like; they require that the plugin categorizes every product correctly: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324436?ctx=tltp

For example, your plugin sent Google hundreds of LED Lights from our website that our other plugin that we switched from had properly categorized as Motor Vehicle Lighting; your plugin caused Google to flag all of them as illegal Healthcare and medicines (restricted pharmaceuticals).

2.Google Shopping reports that the plugin incorrectly provides them with full HTML code for every product description, rather than text, so every single product has a description that incorrectly reads like this:

https://youtu.be/sipi34x6la0 <p><strong>Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport Type X Kit ABL White SAE Fog (Fog 80x8) Features</strong></p><ul><li>Advanced TIR optics provide high efficiency and focus</li><li>SAE-compliant road-legal output</li><li>Includes custom bracket for factory-style appearance</li><li>Plug and play no modification needed</li><li>Durable powdercoated aluminum extrusion</li><li>Engineered and Assembled in USA</li></ul><br><p><strong>Overview</strong></p><p><strong>Overview. </strong>

3.Google is flagging products sent to them from your plugin as missing GTIN numbers, but they are not flagging those products when sent from our other plugin that we migrated from. Your plugin claims to instantly update Google every few seconds via an API, but we’ve seen warnings in our account on Google for days on end even though the products all very clearly have GTIN numbers…?

Example: https://nomadicsupply.com/product/jabsco-255sl-remote-control-searchlight-12v/

Google states: `Violated policies: Product data GTIN requirements
Shopping ads
error_outline
Disapproved or invalid
Enhanced free listings
error_outline
Disapproved or invalid

Incorrect value [identifier exists]
This item has an internationally recognized, unique identifier. Submit a valid GTIN, and either set this value to true or remove this value.`

Thank you!

Hi @joyryde

OK, I had to manually export all 2500 products from our website, then manually copy the BRAND, GTIN, and SKU over to the fields in your plugin from our old plugin

I checked the plugin’s repository and I can see there’s an open enhancement to address that. We don’t know, though, if that is something that will to be implemented in the near future.

All other Google Shopping plugins map the product categories on woocomerce to the correct product categories on Google Shopping, which is required by Google. Your plugin has nowhere at all to map these categories. Google flags every single product you are sending them as missing the category, which they do not like; they require that the plugin categorizes every product correctly: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6324436?ctx=tltp

The Google Product Category is an optional parameter, as noted on that page. Indeed, our plugin doesn’t offer a way to manually set it. The Google team advised our developers not to do that, according to their best practices.

3.Google is flagging products sent to them from your plugin as missing GTIN numbers, but they are not flagging those products when sent from our other plugin that we migrated from. Your plugin claims to instantly update Google every few seconds via an API, but we’ve seen warnings in our account on Google for days on end even though the products all very clearly have GTIN numbers…?

Could you please share a screenshot of one of the product where you’ve entered the GTIN and Google claims you haven’t?

Thanks!

Sure! Here are screenshots ??

Disapproved items disaster after switching plugins, overall view:
https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17358276?key=ab4a10572e95d009eac0b29a488a56e4

Detail view one one example product they disapproved after switching plugins:
https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17358405?key=d80064b596ce20e6487ba111407643d2

Proof of the data on our website:
https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17358498?key=e9a7a8f5a3316445191fb240906e4a20

We also found another issue with the plugin that hopefully you can fix. As you can see in the above screenshot, each product has numerous attributes that are set to “Default”, yet the plugin has no settings whatsoever to set whatever “Default” is. There is no settings page or tab anywhere in Woocommerce in which to set whatever the Default would be…

THANK YOU!

Hey,

Thank you for sharing the example with us!

This is indeed a little bit odd.
I can’t find a similar case report so far, however, I have a few things that I can recommend checking:

1. Can you try to update the GTIN value for that product and try to check again in Google to see if that picks it up?
2. Do you have any caching plugins installed? If yes, could you try to clear the cache and try again?
3. Could you run a conflict test as described here: https://woocommerce.com/document/how-to-test-for-conflicts/

Warm regards,

Google states that the plugin is providing them with 918 product without a GTIN, how do you recommend that we update 918 GTIN’s? That would take weeks of work…

We use Cloudflare and WPRocket, both caches are cleared daily.

Hey @joyryde,

Could you confirm for us if you’ve performed the 3 steps that were requested by @robertghetau and let us know what the results were after doing so? That will allow us to see if any of those procedures provide a different result from what you’re currently experiencing.

Once we know the results of those we can try and assist further after having that information.

Thanks

We already replied about the 3 steps:

Step 1:
Google states that the plugin is providing them with 918 product without a GTIN, how do you recommend that we update 918 GTIN’s? That would take weeks of work…

We downloaded all 2500 products to a CSV, edited them, and re-uploaded them. It took us 5 hours of work, and Google still says every single one of them is disapproved because it doesn’t have a GTIN.

Step 2:
We use Cloudflare and WPRocket, both caches are cleared daily.

Step 3. Already did that before posting.

We even tried disabling your plugin and reenabling it, Google still says there are not GTIN’s and that 27% of our products are disapproved.

Additionally, we added a supplemental feed to your API feed, from the plugin we switched from. That feed has ZERO disapproved products, and even with that supplemental feed, Google still state that 27% of our products are disapproved.

At this point we might have to completely revert 2 weeks of work and go back to using Product Feed Pro because it generated zero disapproved products and we didn’t lose 2 full weeks of sales with it.

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Google Shopping. They said it’s 100% not their API that’s the issue. They said that your plugin is sending them the following data:

GTIN IDENTIFIER EXISTS: FALSE

They said that 700+ products show this and the rest show the GTIN. They said the issue is the plugin itself, and that the plugin should have a simple way to force update all products based on the data that shows within the product page.

They said to show you this example of a product:

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17482068?key=78812e37f0e6635e77579951e72aa940

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/17482079?key=7e89096248e77fb1d5a8ade7a6aebd03

Your plugin simply needs a way to force an update to the API, because Google says this the issue. Whether it be via disabling and reenabling the plugin, or you adding a button that forces an API update.

Additionally, we still have the issue we sent above as well:

We also found another issue with the plugin that hopefully you can fix. As you can see in the above screenshot, each product has numerous attributes that are set to “Default”, yet the plugin has no settings whatsoever to set whatever “Default” is. There is no settings page or tab anywhere in Woocommerce in which to set whatever the Default would be…

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by joyryde.

Hey @joyryde,

Thanks so much for the detailed information you shared with us about what you discussed with Google and what seems to be causing the problem. I also see the other issue about the “Default” attributes that hasn’t yet been resolved.

With that in mind, it’d be great if you could contact us at WooCommerce.com > My Account > Support for further help. You may need to create an account before you can access that page.

That will allow us to get more information that wouldn’t be appropriate for a public forum, such as login credentials for your site.

Please include a link to this forum thread, so that we can keep track of what’s already been discussed.

We’ll be able to help you further via the ticket.

Thank you!

We’ve found yet another flaw in the plugin today. It sends all ON SALE prices to Google Shopping as the REGULAR PRICE, so we now have over 800 products that are on sale being advertised at the wrong price.

Example:

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/11430340706996533076/offers?q=MAXXAIR+Maxxfan+Deluxe+Camper+Roof+Vent+Fan+(White)+(7000K)&prds=cid:11430340706996533076,eto:16402741553600408602_0,scoring:tp

Google shows our price as $349.99 when on our website it’s cleary $299.98.

We are losing $10,000 a week in sales with all of the above issues now.

Another flaw that I spoke to Google Shopping about:

Some products has text on the product images, so Google Shopping said:

Promotional overlay on image: Upload a new image

After uploading a new image, your plugin fails to update Google via the API, so the product ramains banned from Google Shopping even though the image is confirmed by Google to no longer have text on it.

Example product:
https://nomadicsupply.com/product/diode-dynamics-stage-series-2-led-pod-sport-yellow-fog-standard-abl-pair/

Original Image sent to them by your API:
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcSAHtsaNIBMuAR1r21nTmOy9zzZDpQW9Xu5nq1miUUgrsUmis7_bbfLwpiMFhVv2IEefrW4a-I

Current image as of a week ago:
https://nomadicsupply.com/wp-content/uploads/DD6386P-GBFG.jpg