A line in your tab-delimited data feed doesn't contain the same number of delimiters for each line as it does for the header line. Each line in a tab-delimited data feed must have the same number of delimiters as the header line so our system can match each data attribute with its corresponding header. When a product line has fewer delimiters than the header line, our system won’t know which data attribute corresponds to which header. Make sure each attribute is separated by a single delimiter. If an attribute is left blank, you must still include a delimiter to indicate the missing attribute. Here's an example of an error log for a product with too few delimiters:
1:link: http://www.example.com/asp/sp.asp?productid=1006
2:title: Aluminum Trivet
3:description: http://www.example.com/images/1006.jpg
4:image link: 8.99
5:price: MISSING
Example
Here's what a product would look like with an incorrect number of delimiters, using the ⇥ symbol to indicate the delimiters (tab-delimited in this example):
link
⇥ title
⇥ description
⇥ image link
⇥ price
http://www.example.com
⇥ Aluminum Trivet
⇥ http://www.example.com/image
⇥ 8.99
This product has no description, but is missing an additional delimiter that should appear between the description [description]
attribute (which is blank) and the image link [image_link]
attribute (http://www.example.com/image). The missing delimiter causes the attributes after the title [title]
attribute to contain wrong information. If any attribute is blank for an item, you should still include a tab where the attribute would normally appear. Here's an example with the correct number of delimiters included:
link
⇥ title
⇥ description
⇥ image link
⇥ price
http://www.example.com
⇥ Aluminum Trivet
⇥⇥ http://www.example.com/image
⇥ 8.99
Change feed delimiter
By default, Merchant Center will automatically detect the delimiter used in your feed file.
To change the default feed delimiter settings:
Sign in to your Merchant Center account.
Click Products from the navigation menu, then click Feeds.
Click the feed file name.
On the page that loads, select the “Settings” tab.
Select the “Feed Settings” menu, select the drop-down menu option for Delimiter.
In the drop-down menu, choose the delimiter used in your feed.
Click Save.