WP to XML

Tag: Google Shopping Feed

  • Case Study 18: Building an ADCELL-Compatible Product CSV Feed for Naturfroh

    Project Overview

    In December 2023, I developed a custom CSV product feed for Naturfroh, designed for use with the ADCELL affiliate network.

    The goal was to create a reliable, automatically generated product export that could provide publishers with structured product information while following ADCELL’s technical and data requirements.

    The resulting feed is available at:

    https://www.naturfroh.com

    The CSV export is still working correctly today.

    The Challenge

    For affiliate and product-publishing platforms, simply exporting products to CSV is not enough.

    The feed needs to contain the right product information in a predictable structure so that the receiving platform can process the data correctly.

    The ADCELL requirements specified a range of product attributes, including:

    • Product deeplink
    • Product name
    • Short and long product descriptions
    • Gross and net prices
    • Currency
    • EAN
    • Manufacturer information
    • Product and thumbnail image URLs
    • Product category and category ID
    • Shipping costs
    • Availability
    • Delivery time
    • Product contents
    • Basic price information where legally required

    The ADCELL documentation also identifies mandatory fields that must be present in the product feed.

    This meant the solution had to do more than generate a basic product list—it needed to produce structured data suitable for an external advertising and affiliate ecosystem.

    The Solution

    I developed a dedicated CSV feed endpoint for Naturfroh.

    The feed was designed around ADCELL’s specified CSV structure and technical requirements.

    The documented technical format included:

    • UTF-8 or ISO-8859-15 encoding
    • Semicolon (;) column separator
    • Double quotes as text delimiters
    • Line breaks between records
    • Column headers in the first row
    • Product records beginning from the second row

    The implementation therefore focused on generating consistently structured product data rather than relying on a manually maintained spreadsheet.

    Product Data Mapping

    A key part of the project was mapping the available product information into the fields expected by ADCELL.

    The feed structure accommodates important information such as:

    Product identification

    • Product deeplink
    • Product name
    • EAN
    • Vendor item number
    • Manufacturer
    • Manufacturer article number

    Commercial information

    • Gross price
    • Net price
    • Strike price
    • Currency

    Product presentation

    • Product description
    • Long description
    • Product image
    • Thumbnail
    • Product category
    • Category ID

    Delivery information

    • Shipping costs
    • Availability
    • Delivery time

    The ADCELL specification identifies the core mandatory fields required for a usable product feed.

    Handling Pricing and Currency

    Product pricing is particularly important in an affiliate feed because inconsistent formatting can cause problems during import.

    The ADCELL specification supports several recognized price formats and requires each data row to represent pricing in a single currency.

    The feed therefore needed to provide pricing information in a format that could be reliably interpreted by the receiving system.

    Google Shopping and Basic Price Data

    The ADCELL requirements also cover basic-price information for products where applicable.

    For products sold in the EU, the documentation specifies requirements around basic price, unit and content information, including supported units such as:

    • kg
    • l
    • cm
    • m
    • sqm
    • ct

    It also specifies formatting rules for numerical values and unit combinations.

    This is an important consideration when developing product feeds intended for use beyond a simple affiliate product list.

    Result

    The completed feed provided Naturfroh with a dedicated, machine-readable product export for ADCELL.

    Feed:
    https://www.naturfroh.com

    Development: December 2023

    Current status: The CSV export is still working correctly.

    The long-term availability of the feed demonstrates the value of creating a dedicated automated export rather than preparing a one-time CSV file manually.

    Technical Takeaway

    This project is a good example of how a relatively simple-looking CSV requirement can involve several layers of technical work:

    Product database → Data mapping → Formatting → Validation → CSV generation → External platform consumption

    A successful product feed needs to consider both the source data and the requirements of the receiving platform.

    In this case, the implementation was built around ADCELL’s documented requirements for product fields, CSV structure, pricing and product information.

    What I Can Build

    I can develop similar custom product feeds and data integrations for:

    • Affiliate networks
    • Product comparison websites
    • Advertising platforms
    • Google Shopping
    • Marketplaces
    • Real-estate portals
    • XML/RSS consumers
    • Custom APIs
    • CSV/Excel imports
    • Automated data synchronization

    If your platform has a specific feed specification, I can map the existing website or database data to the required format and create an automated feed endpoint.

    Need a custom XML, RSS, CSV or API integration?

    Contact me at contact@wp2xml.com.

  • Case Study 15: Google Product Review Feed for Kiierr: Building a Google-Ready XML Feed

    Overview

    In July 2024, we worked with Kiierr to develop a custom Google Product Review Feed for its e-commerce product and review data.

    The project involved transforming product review information into a structured XML feed based on Google’s Product Review Feed requirements, making the data easier to consume through Google’s product-review ecosystem.

    This project is a good example of how a standard website’s product and review information can be converted into a specialized XML format for an external platform.

    The Challenge

    Product review data is often stored inside an e-commerce website in a format designed primarily for website visitors.

    External platforms such as Google require that information to follow a specific XML structure, with appropriate elements and relationships between products, reviews, ratings, and other relevant information.

    For Kiierr, the requirement was to create a dedicated feed that could present its product review information in a format aligned with Google’s Product Review Feed specification.

    The key challenge was not simply generating XML. The feed needed to:

    • Follow the required XML structure.
    • Represent product and review information correctly.
    • Map the website’s available data to the appropriate feed fields.
    • Handle product identifiers and review-related information.
    • Produce a consistent, machine-readable feed.
    • Provide a dedicated feed URL that could be accessed by the external platform.

    Our Solution

    We developed a custom Google Product Review Feed specifically for Kiierr.

    Rather than relying on a generic XML export, the feed was structured around Google’s product-review feed requirements.

    The development process included:

    1. Data Mapping

    The available product and review information was mapped to the corresponding fields required by the Google Product Review Feed format.

    This included determining which information should be used for products, reviews, ratings, and other associated data.

    2. Custom XML Generation

    A dedicated XML feed was created to generate the required product-review structure dynamically.

    This allowed the feed to represent the website’s review data in a structured format rather than requiring manual XML updates.

    3. Product and Review Relationships

    Product information and associated reviews need to be represented consistently so that an external system can understand which review belongs to which product.

    The feed therefore handled the relationship between product information and its corresponding review data.

    4. Structured Feed Output

    The final implementation provided a dedicated XML feed endpoint that could be accessed independently from the main website.

    This makes it possible for an external service to retrieve the structured data without depending on the presentation layer of the website.

    Why Custom Feed Development Matters

    A product-review feed is different from a conventional RSS feed.

    An RSS feed primarily communicates content updates such as articles, posts, or other published items. A product-review feed has a much more specific data model and must represent information such as:

    • Products
    • Product identifiers
    • Reviews
    • Review authors
    • Ratings
    • Review content
    • Review dates
    • Product/review relationships

    For this reason, simply exporting website content as XML is not enough.

    The important part of this type of project is understanding the target platform’s specification and building the feed around that specification.

    Project Outcome

    The Kiierr project resulted in a dedicated Google Product Review Feed developed in July 2024.

    The project demonstrated our ability to work with specialized XML specifications, map e-commerce data into structured formats, and develop custom feeds for third-party platforms.

    It also forms part of our broader experience developing XML, RSS, product, real-estate, job, API, and other custom data feeds.

    Our Experience With Custom XML Feeds

    Over the years, we have worked on a wide range of feed-related projects, including:

    • Google product and review feeds
    • RSS feeds
    • Real-estate XML feeds
    • Job-board XML feeds
    • API-to-XML integrations
    • XML-to-CSV conversions
    • XML-to-XML transformations
    • Custom PHP feed generators
    • Product data feeds
    • Marketplace and portal feeds

    Each project requires a slightly different approach because the destination platform often has its own XML structure, required fields, validation rules, and data-mapping requirements.

    Need a Custom Product or XML Feed?

    If your website already contains product, review, property, job, or other structured data but you need it exported into a specific XML format, we can develop a custom feed around your requirements.

    We can help with:

    Custom XML Feeds • Google Feeds • RSS Feeds • Product Feeds • API-to-XML • XML-to-XML • XML Troubleshooting

    Have an existing feed that is no longer working correctly? We can also investigate and fix XML structure, data mapping, validation, and feed-generation issues.

    Contact us to discuss your feed requirements.

  • Case Study 11: Google Shopping XML Feed for WordPress Custom Fields: Whitewater Tours Case Study

    Project Overview

    A client from Whitewater Tours needed a Google Shopping XML product feed for approximately 50 products on their WordPress website.

    The website used custom WordPress fields to store product information, and the client wanted that information converted into an XML feed that could be used with Google.

    The project was a good example of how a custom XML feed can be built around an existing WordPress data structure rather than requiring the client to manually maintain a separate product feed.

    Project Requirements

    The main requirements were:

    • Create a Google Shopping XML product feed.
    • Generate the feed from WordPress custom fields.
    • Support approximately 50 products.
    • Make the feed accessible through a dedicated XML URL.
    • Ensure newly added products could automatically appear in the feed.
    • Provide a solution suitable for submission to Google Merchant Center.

    The initial project budget was $50, with a three-day delivery requirement.

    Understanding the Client’s WordPress Structure

    The client explained that the products were already managed through WordPress and that the required information was stored in custom fields.

    Instead of creating a completely separate product database, the approach was to work with the existing WordPress content and transform the available product information into the required XML feed structure.

    This is an important consideration when developing feeds for WordPress websites.

    A feed should ideally work with the website’s existing data rather than forcing the site owner to maintain product information in multiple places.

    Creating the Custom XML Feed

    A custom WordPress XML feed solution was developed specifically for the website.

    The feed was designed to collect the relevant product information from WordPress and make it available through an XML endpoint.

    The resulting feed was intended to provide a direct URL that could be supplied to Google Merchant Center.

    The client also asked whether the feed would automatically include a new product when it was added to the website.

    The answer was yes.

    This meant the client would not need to manually recreate the XML feed every time a new product was published.

    WordPress Plugin Installation

    Because the website was running as a WordPress multisite, the plugin installation required some additional coordination.

    Initially, the required permissions were not available for installing the plugin directly.

    The client therefore uploaded the provided plugin package, after which the feed could be tested and refined.

    This is a common practical issue when working on client websites: the technical implementation may be straightforward, but access permissions and hosting configuration can affect the development workflow.

    Testing and Refinement

    The plugin was not considered finished immediately after installation.

    The client asked whether the work was complete once the plugin had been uploaded.

    The response was that the feed still needed to be checked and refined before being considered final.

    The goal was to make sure that the generated XML could be used as the feed source and that the client could subsequently submit the feed URL to Google Merchant Center.

    The client also confirmed that they would test the implementation and report any issues.

    Automatic Product Updates

    One of the useful features of the implementation was that the XML feed was connected to the site’s WordPress product data.

    The client specifically asked:

    If a new product is added, will it auto go to the XML feed?

    The answer was yes.

    This makes a custom feed considerably more useful for an active website because the feed can continue to reflect the site’s product catalog without requiring the site owner to manually edit an XML file every time a product is added.

    Expanding Beyond Google Shopping

    After the initial XML feed work, the client asked about another Google integration: Google Things to Do.

    This introduced a different type of feed requirement involving event and activity information.

    The discussion moved toward JSON feeds and customized data for individual events.

    The client was informed that the data structure on the website would need to be customized for each event and that the work could be started with a single event to verify the output before expanding the implementation.

    This demonstrated another advantage of working with custom feed development: once the underlying WordPress data and feed requirements are understood, similar structured-data integrations can be evaluated and developed around the same website.

    A Later Check: Feed Endpoint No Longer Available

    More than a year after the original implementation, the old Google feed URL was checked again:

    whitewatertours.com/google.xml

    The endpoint is currently returning a Page Not Found response.

    This does not necessarily mean that the original feed implementation failed. Websites are frequently redesigned, plugins are removed, URLs are changed, or WordPress configurations are modified over time.

    Because the current endpoint is no longer available, the next step is to determine whether the client still requires the Google Shopping feed and, if so, what has changed on the website since the original implementation.

    A follow-up was therefore sent to the client offering to investigate the issue and restore the feed if it is still required.

    Key Takeaways

    This project highlights several important considerations when creating custom XML feeds for WordPress websites.

    1. Work With Existing WordPress Data

    Using the website’s existing custom fields can eliminate unnecessary duplication and allow the feed to stay connected to the site’s product information.

    2. Automate Feed Updates

    Automatically generating the XML output means that new products can be incorporated into the feed without manually editing an XML file.

    3. Consider WordPress Multisite During Development

    Multisite installations can introduce additional permission and plugin-installation considerations that should be accounted for before development begins.

    4. Test Before Submitting the Feed

    A feed should be checked and refined before its URL is submitted to Google Merchant Center.

    5. Feed Maintenance Matters

    Even a working feed can become unavailable later because of website changes, plugin removal, URL changes, migrations, or other configuration changes.

    For this reason, an XML feed should be treated as part of the website’s ongoing technical infrastructure rather than a completely one-time task.

    Conclusion

    The Whitewater Tours project started with a straightforward requirement: convert approximately 50 WordPress products stored using custom fields into a Google Shopping XML feed.

    A custom WordPress feed solution was developed, installed on the client’s multisite environment, and prepared for testing and use with Google Merchant Center.

    The project also opened the door to discussing additional structured-data integrations such as Google Things to Do.

    The later discovery that the original /google.xml endpoint is no longer available also illustrates an important aspect of feed development: ongoing website changes can affect previously working integrations.

    For businesses relying on XML feeds for Google or third-party platforms, periodic testing of the feed URL is therefore a useful part of website maintenance.

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