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Friday, July 24, 2009

Adding Product Types to Google Base Feeds

If you have not yet set-up Google Base you should start by reading this article.

You may have noticed that in your Google Base you get a warning that states "Warning: Missing recommended attribute: weight." The way Etsy has our RSS feeds set-up there is no way for this information to be included. You can however, go in and add these weights manually. Please note that your items will still appear in Google's Shopping searches with out doing this. Following these steps will just help your items to appear in relevant searches. If you decide to edit your items I recommend switching your uploads to monthly because after each upload happens all of your edits will be lost and you will have to re-enter them all by hand.

To add some attributes follow the instructions below:

1. Log into Google Base
2. Click "Active Items"
3. Click "Edit" next to the item you would like to add attributes to
4. Click any of the links under "Include additional details
for your item" on the right hand side
5. New boxes will appear, add the information for your product
6. Click "Publish" at the bottom of the page.


Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

How to Filter a Dynamic IP in Google Analytics

If you haven't read my first post on filters and ip addresses in relation to Google Analytics I suggest you start there to determine if you have a dynamic ip address.

If you have determined that your ip address is dynamic please follow these modified instructions to filter out your own clicks. Please note that this will also filter out other people in your area who come to your shop.

Log into Google Analytics. Toward the bottom right click the blue link titled "Filter Manager." On the right side of the long gray box click "Add Filter."

a. Name the filter whatever you would like; I named mine "me"
b. Under filter type select "Exclude all traffic from an IP address"

Okay, now you need to open up a new window.
First go to whatismyip and copy the IP address that is displayed.
Now go here and paste your IP address into "First IP address" and then click "Generate RegEx." Now copy the characters displayed in "Step 3."

You should have copied something that looks like this: ^88\.100\.200\.300$ Now since you have a dynamic ip (changes often) instead of blocking out your own ip address we are going to only block out part of it. To do this replace the 3 numbers at the end with "\d+" So your new regular expression should look like this: ^88\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+$ (your numbers will be different)

c. Paste the regular expression you just edited into the field titled "IP address"
d. Below that, in the box, click www.etsy.com.
e. Click the "add" button to the right.
f. Click "Save Changes."


Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.

How to Change Your Blog Icon

This question was originally submitted by: Scrivener's Retreat

Question #1: Is there a way we can get those little icons that appear in the window tabs on our own blogs and websites?

You most definitely can change that icon on your blog or website since we are allowed to edit html. This process will not work for your Etsy Shop since we have no html control there. If you would like to add your own icon to your Blogger Blog please follow the instructions below:

Note: These steps are a little bit more involved then some of my other tutorials, feel free to e-mail me if you get stuck and need some help.
  1. Find a picture or an image you would like to use
  2. Go here, click the "Browse" button then select your image
  3. Click the "Generate Favicon.ico" button
  4. A new page will load, click the "Download FavIcon Package" link below your image
  5. Save it to your computer, note where you saved the file
  6. Find the zip folder on your computer and double click on it (this should cause a new folder to appear that is not a zip folder. If this does not happen, right click on the zip folder and unarchive it using a method displayed in your "Open With" menu)
  7. Go here and browse to the folder, inside the folder choose the file that ends with .ico
  8. Click the "Upload" button
  9. This will load a new page, in the third box down copy the text between the [IMG] and [/IMG] tags. The text you copy should look something like this: http://www.picpanda.com/images/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.ico
  10. Log into Blogger, click "Customize", then click "Edit HTML"
  11. Find "<title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title>" it should be right near the top
  12. Paste in the following code right below the title tag : <link href="http://www.picpanda.com/images/abcdegghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.ico" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon"/>
  13. Change the image link to the one you copied from the previous website.
  14. Click "Save Template"


Don't understand something I wrote about? Have a related question? Post a comment and I will be sure to answer it. Have an unrelated question? Submit it here and I will feature it on my blog!

xoxo
susan.