UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More...)

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Improve Your Image; Merchant Moogle Now Supports Product Image Indexing

A picture is worth a thousand words--unfortunately, search engines generally don't index images. However, if you use an XML Site Map tool like Merchant Moogle, you can TELL search engines to specifically index images associated with your products. Moogle can now include your main product image (the full size one) when creating its site map.

If you already have Merchant Moogle, here's how to get the latest version:

1. Download the update here: http://www.phosphormedia.com/download/pm_moogle5.zip.
2. If you are unfamiliar with updating modules, follow these instructions: http://www.phosphormedia.com/support...-updating.html.

NOTE:

1. Some labels in the Moogle Admin have been changed for clarity.
2. By default, the Include product images in sitemap option (on the Manage Sitemap tab) is selected. Simply re-run the Create/Update your sitemap option under Manage Sitemaps.

But I don't have Merchant Moogle!
Don't have Merchant Moogle yet? Well, with the holiday season just around the corner, there is no time like the present to get more of your site indexed now and build page rank ahead of the most profitable part of the year. Visit the Merchant Moogle product page (http://www.phosphormedia.com/product/pm_moogle5.html) to find out how Moogle can help increase your revenue.

More Great Advice to Advance Your Business
We are working on a series of how-to's and tips for all our products. Some tips be product specific, some will be general interest within the module's area of concern. For example, our first tip for Merchant Moogle is How to Fix Crawl Errors. (Important for Moogle users and Non-Moogle users alike.

We will be adding a link on all product pages for these tips. In the meantime, you can view the first Merchant Moogle tip here: http://www.phosphormedia.com/mm5/mer...=how-to-moogle.

[kayakbabe]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

We do not use the legacy old image and thumbnail fields.
We only use the imagemachine in our store.
So can google moogle be instructed to use a particular imagemachine image?
In our store we call the large image we display on the product page as type "large'.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Kayak,

Not directly. You however, could simply use the full size image field to include whatever image you deemed appropriate. We looked at doing exactly what you described, but at the end of the day, you (the Moogle user) would still need to assign an image or reference it to a database. We figured it would be easier to do this (if it wasn't already done) using the same tools you already have for managing data.

[kayakbabe]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Kayak,

[snip] using the same tools you already have for managing data.

umm.. i'm confused. I already do manage my image data in the store with image machine. And those images are stored in a database. I beleive the files names of the images it creates are also stored in a database table.

[kayakbabe]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

We have run into this issue with another module called foretell also. It doesn't care that there is a better way to handle images for the last two years in Miva Merchant. I know there are quite a few of us that only use image machine for image handling. It's so much more flexible than the old way.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Yes, but WHICH image should Moogle use. If there are multiple ones, obviously there are different views. The module would have no way of telling which of these images is best to use. So, we'd have to add a way of making that distinction. Specifically, what I meant about data management, was that by using the full size image field, you would add/edit that data along with all the other product data.

[kayakbabe]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

How about the one that it is set to in the settings for the module?
Same as you choose which one you want to display in any template in the store. OR Something like:

A drop down that has
legacy large image
legacy thumbnail image
image type
image type
image tpye
[all image machine types listed here]

or maybe something like:
use legacy image [radio button] OR use image machine image [radio button] [selection dropdown of image machine type list].

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Kayak,

Food for thought certainly, however our customers generally prefer simplicity and effectiveness over "swiss-army-knife" functionality. That being said, we did a little additional research into the effectiveness of product images and it doesn't seem to be any downside to including multiple images, so its likely we will add simple options to Add Full AND/OR Add All image machine (full size) images to the product listing.

Thanks for bringing this up.

[aarcmedia]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Bruce, was this ever updated? I have a client all set and I told the module to include the product image URL's in the sitemap. I see they do in fact use the legacy image fields in the sense they are populated with old images, but it definately isn't yanking anything from image machine.

I have an entirely different question though. What service does this use to submit the sitemap?

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Moogle uses the image from the product's full sized image.

Not sure what you mean by service. It posts the location of the site map directly to Google's, Bing's and Ask's site map submission URL.

[Gordon - Phosphor Media]

Re: UPDATE NOTICE: Moogle (Hands Free - XML Site Map for Google, Bing, Ask and More..

Ted:

To be more specific, Google/Bing/Ask all require an http request that contains the url to your sitemap. That's exactly what we send.

On your other question, multiple images/Image Machine support never made it off the drawing board. Since Miva did a deal with us to offer it for free to all store owners, we won't be adding any features.

Miva has spoken of their plans to incorporate sitemap generation/submission into the core product. I'd guess they will support Image Machine and probably other features we didn't get around to finishing.