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Point of "Google Category" when adding product


djcaseanova

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Maybe I missed it somewhere, but what exactly is the point of the "Google Category" selection when adding a product? My category is NOT an option after scrolling through that long hard to read list. So I chose one closest to it. Is there a way to "add" a selection or maybe trim the list down as I will never sell 99.99998% of anything from the categories in that list?

 

 

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The point is that those who use Google Merchant Services (gets their inventory listed in Google's shopping mechanism), are required by Google to choose one of these taxonomical identities and also to state the condition (new, used, refurbished) of any product submitted. Getting your inventory properly listed by Google is, apparently, such a good thing - and free? - that making this feature available to the store owner was deemed most appropriate.

 

Unfortunately, the method Devellion chose to present that list was the most expedient and least costly programming-wise -- Google makes it available as a simple text file. We hope Devellion will be able to present this list in a more "usable" format in a future release of CubeCart.

 

As coded, this entire list is fetched from Google every single time a product is brought up for editing. So, trimming the list won't work as there is no cached list to trim.

 

However, Dirty Butter and I derived a solution where the dropdown selector can hold a default value. It wasn't too long ago, a search should find it.

 

Having said that, if you don't use Google, do not feel obligated to enter anything in this non-required field.

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I was thrilled to find this new feature as my products are specifically listed at the sub-category level. It is a bit of extra work but well worth it as I am hoping the website will be more likely to show up in relevant searches. Can you please share how your solution for enablng the dropdown selector to hold a default value works?

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Hi Brian,

 

The request should be cached so it should only request again if the store wide cache has been cleared. I just tested this and the cache is working so it shouldn't be expensive at all. 

$request = new Request('www.google.com', '/basepages/producttype/taxonomy.'.$taxonomy_lang.'.txt');
$request->skiplog(true);
$request->cache(true);
$request->setData(array('null'=>true));
if($response = $request->send()) {
	$google_cats = explode("n",$response);
}
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I make good use of Bsmither's edit to make our most common taxonomy the default, but then I added this at the end as well, to make finding the unusual ones easier:

<a href="http://celebird-cloud.appspot.com/apps/celebird-taxonomy-app.html" target="_blank">Link to Google Taxonomy Picker</a>

 

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