Finding Browse Nodes
Product Advertising API offers several means of finding browse node IDs:
-
BrowseNodes
response group -
BrowseNodeInfo
response group
The BrowseNodes
response group returns the
browse node that an item belongs to as well as the ancestry of that browse node. The
following response shows the ancestral browse nodes of High School. As you read down
the response, the browse nodes ascend the browse node hierarchy. The last browse
node, Books, in the response is the root browse node.
<Item> <ASIN>0976925524</ASIN> <BrowseNodes> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>69825</BrowseNodeId> <Name>High School</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>10605</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Education</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>53</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Nonfiction</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>1000</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Subjects</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>283155</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Books</Name>
There is, however, one caveat. When a node has more than one parent node, the BrowseNodes response group only returns one of the parents. There is no logic that determines which of the parent nodes it follows up the ancestral tree. Running the request multiple times, therefore might return a different set of ancestors for a node.
You can use the BrowseNodes
response group with
ItemLookup
, ItemSearch
, ListLookup
, and SimilarityLookup
.
The BrowseNodeInfo
response group returns browse node names, IDs, children and parent browse nodes, as
shown in the following response snippet.
<BrowseNodeId>11232</BrowseNodeId> <Name> Social Sciences</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>53</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Nonfiction</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>1000</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Subjects</Name> <Ancestors> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>283155</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Books</Name> </BrowseNode> </Ancestors> </BrowseNode> </Ancestors> </BrowseNode> </Ancestors> <Children> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>11233</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Anthropology</Name> </BrowseNode> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>11242</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Archaeology</Name> </BrowseNode> <BrowseNode> <BrowseNodeId>3048861</BrowseNodeId> <Name>Children's Studies</Name> </BrowseNode> </Children>
This response shows that the Social Sciences browse node has three child browse nodes: Anthropology, Archaeology, and Children's Studies, and an ancestry that starts with the parent node, Nonfiction and ends with the root browse node, Books.
You can use this response group only with BrowseNodeLookup
. Typically use BrowseNodeLookup
to navigate the browse node tree. With every response,
you use the browse node IDs returned to refine your search until you reach the
desired browse node.You might, for example, navigate down the tree to refine a
search or retrieve the root browse node to return, for example, the top sellers in
the product category. To do that, you would use the ID of the root browse node found
in the BrowseNodeInfo response as the value for the BrowseNode parameter in an
ItemSearch
request. That request would include the TopSellers response group so
that the top sellers of the product category are returned.
Note: If a browse node has multiple ancestors, only one of them is returned in the response.
In contrast, BrowseNodeLookup
only returns child
browse nodes that are the direct descendant of the browse node in the request. You
could use any of the browse node IDs to either find additional, related browse nodes
by using another BrowseNodeLookup
request, or to focus an
ItemSearch
request.
Use ItemSearch
and ItemLookup
and specify the
BrowseNodes response group.
Find a browse node ID that is similar to
the one you want and use BrowseNodeLookup
to investigate its
child and ancestor browse nodes.
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