Google Feed Issue with Datakick module and <additional_image_link>

[x97wehner]

Hello,

I am using the @datakick module for product feeds to google and others. As part of this, I wish to submit additional images to the feed. Because it is XML, there has to be a line for each additional image in the feed in format <g:additional_image_link>https://www.example.com/image2.jpg </g:additional_image_link> <g:additional_image_link>https://www.example.com/image3.jpg </g:additional_image_link>

The problem is that for some products there is 1 additional image. For others, there are up to six.

Questions:

- Is there a dynamic way to setup the template so that it understands how many additional images there are and inserts a line for each?

- Or, more likely, if I insert a line for each manually in the template and select to omit blanks, how do I formulate the code so that it grabs the next available image for each xml line?

I appreciate the assistance.

[Adik]

Hi,

you can parse a comma string into multiple tags. As a result, you will get a format compatible with Google Merchant Center. 🙂

Here is my solution for <g:additional_image_link>

<?php
$xml = simplexml_load_file('https://my-store.com/endpoint/google-merchant-center-products-only', null, LIBXML_NOCDATA);

$rss = new SimpleXMLElement('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0"><channel></channel></rss>');
$rss->channel->addChild('title', 'Google Merchant Feed');
$rss->channel->addChild('link', 'https://my-store.com');
$rss->channel->addChild('description', 'GMC-only-products');

foreach ($xml->entry as $entry) {
    $item = $rss->channel->addChild('item');

    $gChildren = $entry->children('http://base.google.com/ns/1.0');
    $mainImage = (string)$gChildren->image_link;

    foreach ($gChildren as $child) {
        $name = $child->getName();

        if ($name === 'additional_image_link') {
            $urls = explode(',', (string)$child);
            $count = 0;
            foreach ($urls as $url) {
                $url = trim($url);
                // Skip same main image
                if (!empty($url) && $url !== $mainImage) {
                    $item->addChild("g:additional_image_link", $url, 'http://base.google.com/ns/1.0');
                    $count++;
                }
                if ($count >= 10) break;
            }
        } else {
            $item->addChild("g:$name", (string)$child, 'http://base.google.com/ns/1.0');
        }
    }
}

Header('Content-type: text/xml');
echo $rss->asXML();

Save as my-feed-converter.php and add new file to GMC.

GMC will start processing additional product images after a few minutes. 🙂

 

Edited Tuesday at 08:48 AM by Adik

[datakick]

I appologise for the late reply, I missed this request.

There's no need for any postprocessing as @Adik suggested in his reply. Datakick module supports building this out of the box. Let me explain how xml builder works.

When you create xml node, you can assign it Data property. When you do that, that node will be repeated for every record in your database.

Example: node <category> assigned data = Categories.

Result: category node is repeated for every category in your sotre.

 

Now, inside this <category> node, you can create a new node, and once again assign it Data property. For example, product:

 

Result - inside every category, all products are displayed

 

That is probably not what you want, though. You probably want to filter out products that are somehow relevant to the parent category. For that, there is a Restriction property. You can say how to restrict product based on their relationships with parent node (category). For example, we can have 'Products in category' restriction which means that product is assigned that category. Or you can use 'Product use category as default' restriction.

 

 

Result : we have list of all categories containing only products associated with that category

 

Back to the question. In the same way, we can modify xml feed for google, and add new element <g:additional_image_link>, assign it with Image data, and set restriction = Product images. We can also add additional condition to get rid of remove default image that is inside <g:image_link>

 

 

Result is what we want:

 

 

[x97wehner]

Thanks @datakick. This is a big help. I'm still struggling on how to setup the variant version of this as well. It's not working so far no matter how I set it up. If you happen to know that and could share, that would be super helpful.

[datakick]

For combinations, it almost the same:

add new node, with data = Images, restriction = Combinations images

Content of the node should be expression productImage(image.id, image.friendlyUrl)

Result:

 

 

Note: this will display only images that are associated with given combination. Make sure you have images associated with combinations (Edit product > Edit combination > associate images).

Alternative, if you want to display all products images (not only those associated with specific combination), you can modify the node this way:

• Restriction = All data (all images)
• add custom Condition (combination.productId == image.productId) to filter out images that belongs to other products

 

[x97wehner]

4 hours ago, datakick said:

For combinations, it almost the same:

add new node, with data = Images, restriction = Combinations images

Content of the node should be expression productImage(image.id, image.friendlyUrl)

Result:

 

 

Note: this will display only images that are associated with given combination. Make sure you have images associated with combinations (Edit product > Edit combination > associate images).

Alternative, if you want to display all products images (not only those associated with specific combination), you can modify the node this way:

• Restriction = All data (all images)
• add custom Condition (combination.productId == image.productId) to filter out images that belongs to other products

 

Ah, that association was the gap I wasn't able to fix as our photos are not typically combination specific. This helps a ton. Thanks again!

[x97wehner]

13 hours ago, datakick said:

For combinations, it almost the same:

add new node, with data = Images, restriction = Combinations images

Content of the node should be expression productImage(image.id, image.friendlyUrl)

Result:

 

 

Note: this will display only images that are associated with given combination. Make sure you have images associated with combinations (Edit product > Edit combination > associate images).

Alternative, if you want to display all products images (not only those associated with specific combination), you can modify the node this way:

• Restriction = All data (all images)
• add custom Condition (combination.productId == image.productId) to filter out images that belongs to other products

 

Your input has been incredibly helpful, but I'm still stuck on one situation that I hope you can advise on. For variants, our products typically offer many combinations but do not have specific photos. (Same product but different size. No extra photo needed.) Your advice on how to show this works correctly and it shows all photos related to the productId. The challenge is that we do have a handful of products that actually have specific combination photos (Different colors) and shouldn't show all photos from the product. I haven't figured out how to make the two settings work together for the additional image link node.

If I set the restriction to combination photos, it only populates images for my handful of products with combination photos.

If I set the restriction to all data, it shows all photos for the product, including for those products that have specific combination photos. (Red hat variant is showing red, but also blue, black, and all other color product photos.)

Any advice on how to set this up to handle both scenarios?

 

Edited 4 hours ago by x97wehner