google-base character encoding

Character encoding on google-base is critical to sucessful data-feed-files. Character encoding must be the same in all the following places:

1. all characters on your website;
2. all tools' settings used to create or edit your data-feed-file;
3. declared within the data-feed-file;
4. all characters within the data-feed-file itself;
5. detected by google-base during processing.

Any character encoding information that doesn't match may cause google-base to fail.

The best thing to do is always use the U.S. ASCII printable characters which should work across all character encodings.

The worst thing to do is type or use a character that looks ok on your machine or website but is outside the bounds of the declared or detected encodings.

If you must use a character outside the U.S. ASCII printable characters please use the following chart to find a unicode numeric-entity you can use; if you cannot use a numeric-entity or US-ASCII printable character, simply don't use that character at all within your data-feed-file.

use ascii	or numeric-entities	e.g.	never raw characters
gbp	£	£	£
(c)	©	©	©
(r)	®	®
^2	²	²
1/4	¼	¼
1/2	½	½
3/4	¾	¾
i	í	í
-	–	–	–
-	—	—	—
'	’	’	’
"	“	“	“
"	”	”	”
*	•	•	•
...	…	…	…
(sm)	℠	℠
(tm)	™	™	™

Ebay Google Base Feeds

If you're submitting google-base items from your eBay-store try using the steps outlined below --

1. Register a google-base xml data-feed-file with the name: yourstorename.xml
2. Click on the "Settings" tab in your google-base account;
3. Under "Website URL (Optional)", replace the existing URL with your store's XML link generated by eBay. The link should look like this:
   http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/yourstorename?fmt=g
4. Click "Save Changes" to confirm your changes;
5. Click the "Data feeds" link on your "My Items" tab;
6. Click "edit" next to "schedule" beside your "data feed";
7. Under "URL of file," replace the existing URL with the ebay generated link as mentioned in step (3) above;
8. Click "Update Schedule" to confirm your changes;
9. Your data feed will be automatically submitted in the correct format, next time and onwards, per your schedule.

note: for accurate status information i recommend to schedule the feed update at most once a week. note: these instructions assume your ebay settings allow for xml data export --
please see here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/stores/contextual/export-listings.html
note: the fmt=g feed doesn't work with all ebay-store scenarios.

Unfortunately, the Google Merchant Center no longer accepts any feed data from marketplace-sellers directly; all marketplace items must be submitted by the marketplace. In this example, ebay must submit all items on your behalf.

But thank you for all the generous feedback.