Database Upload, Excel, and CSV

I've seen this come up many times, especially with people new to Yahoo! Store. They try to use the database upload function to load products into the store, and get a bunch of error messages after the upload complaining about missing fields, invalid characters, etc. The problem most likely is that they are trying to upload the actual Excel (XLS) file, not a CSV file.

So before you try to upload your spreadsheet, first make a copy of it as a CSV file. This is one of the file type formats when you select File > Save As in Excel. Then, upload the CSV copy, not the original Excel file.

Here is some more info on the database upload feature for Yahoo! Store.

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What to expect when your redesign goes live

At Y-Times we roll out new designs, redesigns and other major upgrades to Yahoo stores on a fairly regular basis. Some of the main questions our clients ask are how to prepare for a roll-out and what to expect in terms of SEO and conversions when the changes go live?

For any functional Yahoo store how well the site ranks and how well it converts are probably the two most important metrics. Since pretty much ANY change you make to any page can potentially alter either or both of these metrics, merchants may understandably feel nervous about far reaching alterations to their sites. However, when those functionality and design changes and additions are done right, there is really very little to fear.

First off, what does it mean for a design or redesign to be "done right?" From the technical stand point, search engines look at the underlying structure of your site (the HTML, and increasingly also the CSS and JavaScript code) to try to extract information and meaning from it. If…

What is product-url anyway?

I keep having to field questions about the product-url field, and since it came up yesterday, I figured I'd try to clear up all the confusion about it.

So the name product-url suggests that whatever you type in there will become the URL of that product. Unfortunately, this is not the case, or rather, not in the intuitive way. The URL you enter there will be used as the URL for that product in Yahoo Shopping, on the built-in search results page, and on the shopping cart page, however, the URL you type in there DOES NOT actually change the physical URL of the page.
What is the URL of a page in a Yahoo Store? In any Yahoo Store built in the store editor, the URL of a page is the store's domain name and the page ID + .html. For example, in my store at www.ytimes.info, I have a page whose id is rtml101, thehrefore, the URL of that page is http://www.ytimes.info/rtml101.html.
Why would you want to change the URL? For SEO reasons, it is believed to be better to have a URL that includ…

Referencing Files from Yahoo! Web Hosting Securely

Now that hopefully most of you you have your stores secured (if not and need help, we offer a Secure Storefront Preparation Service here), you may have been faced with the question of how to reference files (images, CSS, JavaScript, src) if those files are stored on your Yahoo! store's web hosting account. Obviously using the old HTTP: method won't work, so something like this

< img src="http://site.ytimes.com/image.jpg" />

will not work. Nor can you simply change the http: part to https: , because as of this writing, only the store editor portion of a Yahoo! Store can be made secure, the web hosting portion cannot.

First a side note: if this sounds totally Greek to you because you have never heard of the web hosting part of your Yahoo! Store, you may have a legacy Yahoo! store account and not a Merchant Solution one. With a legacy store account you will only have the store editor part and no hosting account, in which case none of this applies to you.

The good n…

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