Shopping Content API playground
To make testing Content API usage as easy as pie... a piece of cake... pure cake!
This website is intended at helping merchants to play with Google Content API for Shopping,
but is not endorsed or affiliated with Google in any way. This service is provided as
best-effort and there is no guarantee of availability.
Google Content API for
Shopping allow you to submit product offers to Google to be displayed in the search results as well as on
Google Shopping. While submitting offers to Google
is free, for them to be displayed, you need to use them in an
AdWords campaign.
This site serves as a dummy shop website that you can claim (to simplify the signup process) and
provides test offers for you to be able to test Content API more easily.
1. Create a Merchant Center account
Create a Google account and log
into the Merchant Center and create a
merchant account. Provide the necessary informations, use the below website address to enable the
playground (this will allow you to skip the website claiming that is otherwise required).
http://tmp45835.purecake.com
Note: you can also replace tmp45835 by your Merchant Center ID.
While you are in the Merchant Center, note your Merchant Center ID (available in
the upper right corner), as this will be necessary for later.
2. Create a Developer Console project
Open the Developer Console and create a new project.
Go in the menu APIs and search for Content API for Shopping and enable it.
To authenticate with OAuth, you need a client ID and a secret key. To create a new client ID, go in the menu
Credentials, then create a new Client ID then select installed and other.
You will receive a Project ID and the associated secret key that you will need later.
3. Use a client library
There are several client libraries
for Java, JavaScript, .NET, Objective-C, PHP, Python, Go, GWT, Node.js and Ruby that are supported by Google.
I encourage you to review the associated examples and post your questions on the
official forum.
If you want, you can also use my lightweight PHP library if it suits your needs.
Essentially, the API clients requires the Project ID and secret key to authenticate your application.
You then need to allow your project to access your merchant account (see
OAuth for details).
The merchant ID will be then used to determine which merchant account to use (can also be retrieved with
authinfo).
4. Submit product offers
You do not have yet products to submit or want to start with some examples? That's the very purpose
of the products generator. You can then directly use the JSON from the product page in Content API.
5. Advertise your offers
You can finally create an
AdWords test account
to run a campaign on your offers. If you bid on the product offers you created on this site, please
make sure you do so from a test account.
inventory
tax & shipping
accounts