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I received an error message when importing historical rankings data
I received an error message when importing historical rankings data

This usually results from improper formatting of either a CSV file, or of the folder structure

Matthew Davis avatar
Written by Matthew Davis
Updated over a week ago

Our rankings import process requires formatting and naming conventions to be followed precisely. Otherwise, you'll receive an error message upon attempting the import.

  • Issue 1: Data can only be imported into a completely empty (i.e. new) campaign. If you've connected any integrations or you've added any keywords to be tracked, the import process will not be allowed.
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  • Issue 2: One or more of the .CSV files aren't formatted properly. Have you followed the instructions in this article to the letter? Does your .CSV file look exactly like the sample CSV here, with the exact same names for every column?
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  • Issue 3: Is your file structure accurate? You should be uploading a file with the .ZIP file extension, which contains exactly one folder, with that folder being named "keywords" (with all letters in lowercase). That "keywords" folder should then contain your .CSV files, which should follow the naming conventions outlined here.

    The .ZIP file may also include another folder titled "integrations" only if you are importing integration settings. The "integrations" folder should be placed in the root of the .ZIP file, with the integration settings files placed inside the "integrations" folder. Integration settings files can only be generated by our system during the bulk export process.
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  • Issue 4: If you exported historical rankings from our system, then opened it in Excel and re-saved it, Excel may have automatically reformatted the dates in the file, which can result in an error. In this case, the error will typically say that the date or another field is not in the proper format. A common error of this type is "xx/xx/xx is Not in Correct Date Format".

    Our system requires dates to be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD (i.e. 2016-05-27). By default, Excel automatically re-formats dates as MM/DD/YY (i.e. 09/07/16), and can sometimes automatically reformat other data types as well. This causes our importer to throw those errors.

    The first solution is to manually re-format your data in Excel.

    The second solution is to use Numbers (on a Mac) or Google Sheets to work with your .CSV files instead of Excel. This screencast will walk you through the process using Google Sheets for this operation.

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