microsoft live search cashback

[Meander]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

Mark,

Should it matter if my images are not located in the graphics/00000001 folder in the mm5 folder? All my images are stored in a different folder and referenced as such (ie: http://www.premierpersonalization.com/pics/image1.jpg).

[Mark Johnson]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

Mark,

Should it matter if my images are not located in the graphics/00000001 folder in the mm5 folder? All my images are stored in a different folder and referenced as such (ie: http://www.premierpersonalization.com/pics/image1.jpg).

There is an Image URL field in the data feed sent to Microsoft. It is set to your "Base URL for Graphics" followed by the "Full-sized Image" of the product. So if your "Base URL for Graphics" is set to http://www.premierpersonalization.com/pics and your product's "Full-sized Image" is set to image1.jpg, then this should be working for you.

[Meander]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

Mark,

Thanks for the quick reply.

The Base URL is set to: http://premierpersonalization.com/mm5/

But all the images I actually use are in a different folders (under http:/premierpersonalization.com/images ). When specifying images for my products, I have entered the full path to the product image (ie: http://www.premierpersonalziation.co...s/bag_tags.jpg)

I just look at the date feed and see the 'Image URL' field is set to both, one appended right aafter the other. In other words:
http://premierpersonalization.com/mm...s/bag_tags.jpg

And thus, I see the reason why my product images are not being shown.

Would it be possible to have the MS Cashback module check to see if a product image starts with 'http:' and if so, skip the append?

I'm going to correct the field in the cashback.txt file and manually upload it for now.

Thanks again!

[Mark Johnson]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

Mark,

Would it be possible to have the MS Cashback module check to see if a product image starts with 'http:' and if so, skip the append?

I'm preparing the next update to the module (to be released in our next streaming update). I just finished putting this change in.

[Red Flare]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

For those who have implemented this Microsoft live search cashback. Are you getting any orders? Is it worth the hassle that I think this looks like?

[Meander]

Re: microsoft live search cashback

Red,

Short answer: No, no orders and in fact, a decrease in traffic referrals from the live.com site!

For the period of 3/3/09 - 4/34/09 (the period when I was able to finally get my items successfully published to now) live sent my site 2 visitors according to Google Analytics. For the period of 3/3/08 - 4/23/08 live sent 33 visitors to my site!

Live referrals for the current period account for barely 1% of search enging traffic for my site.

I don't know what merchant live is going for, but yesterday I completed a survey from live asking about my experiences. When it came to the "What sales volume does your company generate?", the *lowest* answer was "less than $7M"! There were then other increments all the way up to the top value of "Over $300M". I guess my store (at least right now) isn't large enough to reap the benefits of live search and cashback.

These are just my impressions after a just over a month with live. Your mileage may vary (though it will be interesting to see what others here have experienced).