[Google Shopping API] Almost empty results

[hilmanski]

A customer reported that a search on Google Shopping returned basically empty results. It only shows one sponsored result with no shopping_results.

I suspect this is just a one-time issue since I can't replicate it on my side.

Notes:

• The customer used num for this search, but I'm not sure if that's the cause.
• The customer suspect that the cause is the missing domain, in this case: google.com.au

Internal links: Intercom | Search Inspect 1

[alexbarron]

Edit: Bumping to prioritized status as this is impacting a long-time customer's ability to demo their solution to clients.

The customer provided another example of the issue without setting a num param and including google_domain=google.com.au. However in this instance, inline_shopping_results appeared, but no shopping_results were returned despite the same query manually in Google returning normal shopping results. Inspect

Additionally I've been able to reproduce the issue; although responses vary in quality.

In one instance, I received only one sponsored result in the HTML preview, but empty JSON. This is the same as the customer's original report. Inspect

In another instance, I got nothing at all. Inspect

It's a small sample size, but most of the time this query seems to work. Unclear why it's so inconsistent. Here's what it looks like when it works:

[dsojevic]

To add some minor context here; I ran a small test of 100 searches (using the same parameters used in the examples above) and found that 7/100 had an issue with Google returning a blank result area.

It appears that the HTML we are provided in those instances is fully devoid of any product information, so it might be that we need to do a transparent retry in these instances if we can find a suitable indicator versus a search with no actual results.

[marm123]

Another user reported this issue:

Intercom

I've recreated the issue for a valid search:
Inspect

Do we have an ETA for when this can be worked on and fixed?

[mikemorcerf]

@kagermanov27, do you think this could be related to this comment you posted in this PR?

According to @dsojevic's findings though it happens less than 10% of the times.

[dsojevic]

I've performed a large number of tests against the problematic searches that were originally reported, searches I had previously been able to reproduce the issue with, and a series of assorted novel searches and have been unable to reproduce it at this time.

As we haven't had any recently reported instances of this issue recurring, I'm going to leave this open for now and adjust the priority. If any new instances are reported or if anyone else is able to reliably reproduce the issue, I will re-raise the priority and address it promptly.