Frequently Asked Questions

How can I support BrowseNodes.com?

If you find this website useful, you can support this effort by ordering from Amazon.com through our associate links, by making a contribution through PayPal (click the button below), or by adding a link to http://www.browsenodes.com/ or http://www.browsenodes.co.uk/ to your web site. Thanks!

(2006-09-29)

How do I get help using BrowseNodes.com or the BrowseNodes.com web services?

Please email roger [@] jadebox.com if you have any questions. (2006-04-20)

Why do some Browse Nodes not return products?

According to Amazon.com's Web Services FAQ:

Some categories of browse nodes are simply not accessible via the AWS API. This is because ASINs are generally associated with these nodes temporarily and via our API, we cannot access these associations. The browse nodes that fall in this category are extremely dynamic and the ASINs associated with them change daily or even hourly. Here are some US examples:

549012 - Bestsellers: The Amazon.com 100
549028 - The New York Times® Best Sellers

As stated in a post on the AWS Discussion Board, "Contractual obligations prohibit us from returning product information for certain browse nodes that contain products from third-party merchants, such as Target. This does not apply to all third-party merchant products. Amazon has decided to make all of its offerings available via AWS; however, not all of Amazon's partners have agreed to do the same... yet."

Promotions, holidays, catalog changes, and other events spawn recategorization of ASINs and of browse nodes. The management of these recategorizations is beyond the control of the Amazon Web Services team. At the present time, many changes are impossible for us to detect and communicate to you.

Sometimes the proper Search Index to use for a browse node isn't obvious. You may need to experiment with different indexes to find which ones, if any, return products for a specific browse node. Some nodes return different sets of products depending on the Search Index used in the A2S query.

For more information, please see:

Are Browse Nodes Disappearing? (2004-03-29)

Why do some browse nodes have IDs that are less than zero?

The nodes with IDs that are less than zero do not correspond to actual Amazon.com browse nodes. The browse nodes in the database with IDs that are less than zero are nodes that were added to the database to fill in gaps and to enhance Amazon.com's browse node hierarchy. (2004-02-13)

How can I download the entire database?

You can't download the entire database at once, but you can browse through the nodes and select a browse node to download. Then use the form at the bottom of the page to download a file containing information on all of the node's children. (2004-02-06)

Do you offer the browse node data though a web service?

Yes, the database information is available in XML format through the BrowseNodes.com web services. Please see XML Services for more information. (2004-02-06)

Where can I see examples of sites or scripts using the data from BrowseNodes.com?

The Jadebox Store was created an as example of a site using the data from BrowseNodes.com. (2004-01-25)

Why do some of the search indexes or product groups seem wrong?

Sometimes the Search Index and Product Group data for a browse node in the database don't seem to match. For example, a browse node in the Apparel product Group might have Photo listed as the Search Index. This happens because BrowseNodes.com uses an automated method to determine the proper mode for each browse node. The Search Index listed in BrowseNodes.com actually returned the indicated Product Group and products for the browse node during testing using A2S. (2004-01-25)