Friday, April 4, 2014

Enforcing Unique Names for Feeds in the AdWords API

Update: This change went into effect on May 7th, 2014. The AdWords API will return a DistinctError with reason DUPLICATE_ELEMENT if you attempt to ADD or UPDATE an active Feed with the same name as another active Feed. The uniqueness check is case-insensitive.


Starting on April 29, 2014, the FeedService will start validating that newly added Feeds have unique names within an AdWords account. Once this change goes into effect, you will get a FeedError when you ADD a new Feed with the same name as another active Feed.

Currently it’s possible to have multiple Feeds with the same name. Introducing unique names will improve clarity in the user interface, and it will also allow Feeds to be referenced unambiguously by name, in addition to their ID.

Please ensure that your application is both uniquely naming Feeds and able to handle a potential naming conflict before this change goes into effect.

Shortly after this change is rolled out, we will append a unique value to the names of any remaining duplicates. For example, the following pair of Feeds on the left would be renamed as follows:

Old Names
New Names
My Sitelinks Feed
My Sitelinks Feed-1
My Sitelinks Feed
My Sitelinks Feed-2