Time to get first feed approved.

[macdesign]

I uploaded my first Froogle feed [for a single product] on November 4, and it's still waiting. Is it normal to take so long?

[T0PS3O]

Yes. I'm still awaiting from the same date too.

[joseph29]

I wonder if this is a sign of things to come as Google becomes metrics driven by the market.

[T0PS3O]

Mine's live now.

[EConcepts]

Once your account has been approved in Froogle, if the datafeed is setup correctly, it should not take that long. I have seen it take that long before, but typically, once your datafeed is uploaded, you should be indexed and in Froogle within a few days at the most.

When we work with clients on uploading their feeds and managing thier Froogle accounts, from time of upload of the datafeed to time it appears in Froogle we are talking 2 - 3 days max.

We just uploaded a client's optimized datafeed on Tuesday of this week, and they were listed in Froogle by Thursday of the same week. Since then, we have re-optimized the feed and uploaded it again after finding thier initial positioning and we expect to see the results of that within another day or two at the most.

The most lengthy part of the Froogle process is the wait to get approved as a merchant (from our past experience). After that, the rest is pretty quick.

[macdesign]

Mine appears to have just gone live, cause it was not up on Friday afternoon. However the product picture is missing - so I have to go figure out why.

The initial merchant approval only took a couple of days, this took over 8 days.

[EConcepts]

It could be a bad link on your part in the datafeed, a missing picture in the directory you are referring to in the datafeed, or most commonly -- a robots.txt file blocking access to the images directory inadvertantly (Froogle specifically states that you should allow their robot access to the directory in which the images in your datafeed reside).

[macdesign]

Five gold stars for that advice. :)

I never would have thought of it, but the robots.txt was blocking it. I don't ever remember blocking images in any site, but it seems I did here.

[ADDED] 2.5 hours later

Follow up - I changed the robots.txt ro remove the disallow. I then uploaded the feed again. I see no note that revised feed has been accepted, yet the picture now displays in Froogle. That's pretty fast.

[EConcepts]

Yes, I thought that was going to be the problem (the robots.txt file). It is one of the most common things we see. As far as speed ... yes again, the chagnes once the feed is up are almost immediate. In your case, you may not have even needed to upload the feed again. I looks like since the picture showed up so quickly, all you had to you was fix the robots.txt file ... I suspect the original links you sent in your previous datafeed were correct, and that is what contributed to the speed as well.

Glad I could help.

[CrazyHarry]

I just uploaded my first feed and it still shows:
Status: Inactive

Is this what it should say until I get approved? Or did I do something wrong?

Also...

When I go to "feeds" it shows the filename, but "Uploaded At" and everything else shows no date. Is this also normal?

Just want to make sure all has been done correctly. :)

CH

[expat]

I just uploaded my first feed and it still shows:
Status: Inactive

CH
Presently I see a feed processing time of about 8 hours.....

Hedwig (the lovely) just queues for processing

In case of first feed it should switch to active but 0 on froogle after this and if you dig deeper it'll tell you pending review....

Patience ... patience ....
M

[CrazyHarry]

Ok... interesting to see how things move along on froogle.

Now we have this:

Alerts

Dismiss Severity Type Store ID Feed file name Uploaded at
Critical Unrecognized feed - help ? filename.txt 11/16/04 09:25

The filename.txt matched the one I registered perfectly... yet I'm being told it is an Unrecognized feed?

Duh... Duh... Duh... and I thought I understood this type of thing. LOL.

Is this normal too?

CH

(Edit: The reason I am posting this saga is to help others that run into the same) :) Let's hope you don't need it. :)

[expat]

yes only one upload will be concidered. As long as that is there all others land in the bin.

[CrazyHarry]

As a service to others...

I uploaded my feed on:
11/16/04 09:12
It was processed:
11/16/04 09:32

I got the errors (which I'm told is normal, but worrisome, nontheless):
Success with errors

As of 11/19/04 10:40 my status is:
Feed pending content approval.
and
Feed not approved to go live.

From the wording of these errors/comments, it would seem that my feed will not go live, but since it has yet to be reviewed... you really don't know. The wording is very confusing as many people here say that this is normal.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you see something similar, this would mean the only thing you can do is sit tight and wait for the magic. :)

Just an update,

Pete

[expat]

relax presently it looks like 4 days to approval...

you get something like

Hello xxxxxx,

Good news - the content of your feed has been approved to appear on
Froogle UK. If your feed has no formatting errors, your products will
appear on Froogle UK within the next 24 hours. Otherwise, check the
Froogle Merchant Centre to view and fix any feed errors you might have,
and upload again after they've been fixed.

.....

cheers
M

[CrazyHarry]

Just a short update.

Today is 9-22-04 (13:07), the status is still the same as my prior post...

I'm patient. :)

CH