Exporting a product feed

An export feed publishes your catalogue for a shopping channel. The admin puts it plainly: “Publish your catalog as a Google Shopping or Facebook product feed, served from a secure public URL.”

Two decisions, made once

Format — Google Shopping or Facebook. The channel decides the shape of the file; you are not writing it, you are choosing which shape to generate.

Scope — which products go in. A feed is rarely your whole catalogue: draft products, out-of-stock lines and products you do not want advertised all have reasons to stay out.

What “secure public URL” actually means

When the feed is created, CIQRA generates a URL containing a secret. That URL is public in the sense that Google or Facebook can fetch it without signing in, and secure only in the sense that it is unguessable.

Two consequences worth holding on to:

• Anyone with the URL can read the feed. It is a credential, not just a link. Paste it into the channel that needs it and nowhere else.
• It is generated once, when the feed is created. Treat it the way you would treat an API key rather than a page address.

A feed that validates is not a feed that sells

Getting a feed accepted is the first bar, not the last. Approval means the file was well-formed and its categories mapped; it says nothing about whether the titles, images and prices in it are the ones you would have chosen for an advert.

If a channel is showing something odd, the feed is the first place to look — the storefront can be perfectly correct while the feed carries a stale field.

What this page does not say

• It does not give click-paths. This screen has no verified screenshot in this help centre.
• It does not cover setting up a Google Merchant Center or Facebook Commerce account. Those are the channels’ own onboarding and their documentation is the authority.
• It does not say how often the feed is regenerated, or whether the URL can be rotated. Neither has been checked against the current screen, so neither is stated here.