Google Merchant Center: the complete guide for e-commerce teams

Google Merchant Center is the free tool where retailers hand their catalog to Google. Almost every title, price, image and stock status Google shows in Shopping, in a Performance Max campaign or in an AI Mode answer comes from that account. An incomplete feed makes products vanish without warning. A precise one gives Google what it needs to match each product to the right search.

This guide is written for the e-commerce, performance and catalog teams who run an account day to day. It covers setup, data sources, attributes, diagnosing errors and disapprovals, what changed with Merchant Center Next, and how the account feeds Google’s AI-driven shopping experiences.

What is Google Merchant Center?

Merchant Center is a Google console that receives, checks and distributes your product data. You send a list of items with their attributes (ID, title, price, availability, image, GTIN and so on). Google checks each item against its specification and policies, then makes it eligible for placements across Google: the Shopping tab, Search, Images, YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and Google Maps for in-store products.

The tool doesn’t build campaigns. It is the reference database that Google Ads reads from. The account also carries business information that matters as much as the feed: a verified website, a return policy, shipping terms and contact details. Google uses them to judge whether a merchant can be trusted.

In most companies, GMC sits between three teams. IT or an agency produces the feed, the performance marketer uses it in Google Ads, and the catalog team owns the data. Many problems come from that split: an error you see in Merchant Center usually gets fixed in the PIM or the e-commerce platform, rarely in Merchant Center itself.

Where Merchant Center data goes

One catalog serves several channels, which is the main reason to care about feed quality beyond your Shopping campaign.

Shopping ads and Performance Max

Standard Shopping and Performance Max campaigns pull their product ads from the linked Merchant Center account. Google picks the product to show and builds part of the ad from the title, image, price and attributes. The custom_label_0 to custom_label_4 fields let you segment the catalog in listing groups (margin, seasonality, best sellers) without touching the title.

Free listings

Since 2020, Google has also shown unpaid product listings in the Shopping tab and other results. You turn the program on in Merchant Center: no bids, no budget. Data quality alone decides whether a product appears.

Local inventory

Retailers with physical stores can send local stock data that powers local inventory ads and free local listings. You need to link the account to a Google Business Profile and send a per-store inventory feed. Deployments often break on store code matching, which we cover in our piece on why local inventory ads deployments fail.

AI Overviews, AI Mode and the Shopping Graph

Google builds its Shopping Graph from several sources, Merchant Center data among them. That graph supplies the product results shown in AI Overviews and AI Mode when someone searches with purchase intent. In 2026 Google added conversational attributes to Merchant Center (questions and answers, related products, documents) to help these systems understand a product in natural language.

ChatGPT and third-party assistants

Conversational assistants don’t read your Merchant Center account. They do rely on public product data, and part of what ChatGPT recommends also appears in Google Shopping, as our study of the ChatGPT product carousel shows. OpenAI also accepts product feeds submitted directly by merchants. A feed built properly for Merchant Center carries over largely intact to these newer channels.

Setting up a Merchant Center account

Creating the account takes under an hour. Configuring it well enough to avoid suspensions takes more care.

1. Create the account. Go to merchants.google.com with a shared work Google account rather than someone’s personal login.
2. Add business details. Business name, address, phone number and customer service email. These must match what your website shows.
3. Verify and claim your website. Google asks you to prove you own the domain (Search Console, HTML tag, Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager) and then claim it. An unclaimed site blocks serving.
4. Set up shipping and returns. Delivery times, rates, regions and return policy live in the account settings. You can also send them through the shipping attribute, but account-level settings are easier to maintain.
5. Add a data source. See the next section.
6. Link Google Ads and turn on programs. Link your Google Ads account, enable free listings and, where relevant, local inventory.

Groups with several brands or countries can use a multi-client account (MCA) to manage sub-accounts from one login. In the European Economic Area, Shopping ads run through a comparison shopping service (CSS). Google Shopping is the default one, others exist, and the choice affects click costs. Our article on comparison shopping services explains how.

Product feeds and data sources

Merchant Center Next talks about data sources rather than feeds. The principle hasn’t changed: a source either supplies products or adds attributes to them.

Ways to send data

• Scheduled file: a TSV, TXT or XML file hosted on your server that Google fetches on a schedule. The most common setup.
• Google Sheets: handy for a small catalog or a test, fragile beyond a few hundred products.
• Platform integrations: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and other platforms offer a native connector or app.
• API: the Merchant API supports near real-time updates. It replaces the Content API for Shopping, which was sunset on August 18, 2026: since September 1, 2026, calls to the old API fail intermittently unless Google granted an extension. If your integration still runs on it, migrate first and check the timeline in Google’s documentation.
• Website extraction: Merchant Center Next can create products from the structured data on your pages. A reasonable way to start, too coarse to control titles and attributes.

Primary and supplemental sources

The primary source creates products. A supplemental source only adds or overrides attributes for existing products, joined on id. It’s the clean way to add custom labels, fix GTINs or rewrite titles without changing your platform export.

Merchant Center also offers rules that transform data on import (combine fields, replace a value, set a default). They are quick fixes, but they get hard to audit as they pile up. Past a dozen rules, a product feed optimization tool such as Feed Enrich keeps a readable record of every transformation and enriches titles and attributes without touching the source feed.

Attributes: required, conditional and recommended

Google’s product data specification lists dozens of attributes. Some are required for eligibility, some depend on category or country, and the rest improve how relevant your ads are.

Eligible products can still be invisible products. Recommended attributes give Google what it needs to match a product to specific searches. Our article on how well-filled attributes boost Shopping campaigns goes deeper.

Conversational attributes

At Google Marketing Live in May 2026, Google added six optional attributes to the Merchant Center specification. They are built for AI Mode, Gemini and the Business Agent, which have to answer shopping questions phrased in natural language (“a kettle with adjustable temperature, and the filter that fits it”). The fields are available in every country.

Two points frame the topic. Sending them has no effect on product approval: a badly formatted conversational attribute won’t get a SKU disapproved, it becomes unusable. Google also documents no effect on Shopping ranking. These fields give AI systems facts they can read, quote and compare. Google recommends sending them through a supplemental source joined on id, so the primary feed (price, stock, title) stays untouched.

The rules

Anything already in description, product_highlight or product_detail shouldn’t be copied into these fields. Each attribute has its own job: highlights sum up benefits in short lines (150 characters each), product_detail structures technical specs by section, attribute and value, and question_and_answer covers the questions shoppers ask before buying. If a FAQ already sits in a PDF sent through document_link, don’t send it again as question_and_answer: Google says it extracts questions from documents.

Answers have to stay factual. Google bans prices, dates, promotions, delivery times, the company name and lists of search terms from Q&A. It also asks for varied questions (use, care, what’s in the box, compatibility) rather than five rewordings of one selling point. For variants, keep sending color, size or material: variant_option adds to them for AI systems without replacing them.

One example per field family

• Questions and answers, for a kettle: “How long does the keep-warm function last?” answered with “Up to 15 minutes at the selected temperature.”
• Catalog relationships, for a coffee maker: required_part:id:FILTER-01,accessory:gtin:811571013579.
• Documents, for flat-pack furniture: https://example.com/assembly-instructions.pdf, a stable URL that needs no login.
• Variants, for a T-shirt: item_group_title set to “Men’s organic cotton T-shirt”, variant_option set to color:black,size:M.
• Popularity: 95.5 for a best seller, 12.3 for a long-tail item. An honest percentile, recalculated regularly, beats a 99 on every product.

Where to start

Start with the top of your catalog, the 5 to 10% of products that drive traffic or margin. Write Q&A from product pages, customer service tickets and manuals. Then type relationships wherever your merchandising already exists, and add PDFs for appliances, DIY and flat-pack furniture. item_group_title and variant_option come next for fashion and electronics, with popularity_rank last, calculated rather than typed in product by product. Our dedicated article on conversational attributes walks through the spec field by field, and our guide to the product_highlight attribute explains where highlights end and technical details begin.

Images and visuals

The image is often the first thing a shopper sees in a Shopping ad, before the title. It weighs on CTR, and Google checks it closely: one non-compliant image is enough to get a product disapproved.

Main image: what Google requires

image_link is the main image. Google currently requires at least 100 × 100 pixels (250 × 250 for apparel), a floor that rises to 500 × 500 pixels for all products from January 31, 2027; an image below the minimum is not disapproved, but it is not shown. Google accepts up to 64 megapixels and 16 MB, in JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF, BMP or non-animated GIF. Aim for 1,500 × 1,500 pixels so zoom works, a white or transparent background, and a product that fills 75 to 90% of the frame.

The most common reasons for disapproval:

• promotional text overlaid on the image (“50% off”, “free delivery”): promotions belong in sale_price;
• a watermark or a retailer logo;
• a border or a collage;
• a placeholder (“image coming soon”) or a generic stock visual;
• an image that doesn’t show the product being sold, such as a different color from the variant in the feed;
• a URL Google’s crawler can’t fetch.

The three image fields

The sofa in a living room or the jacket worn outdoors belongs in lifestyle_image_link: the main image stays clean, and the shopper still sees the product from every side.

Images, CTR and visual search

In a Shopping grid, similar products sit side by side, and a sharp, well-framed image helps yours get picked. Discovery also runs through Google Lens, where the shopper starts from a photo, and through AI Mode. Varied, accurate visuals give Google more material to match your product to those searches. Answer engines still cite text far more than images, as our analysis of why AI cites text rather than video shows, so every visual works best alongside complete attributes in the feed.

Automatic image improvements and Product Studio

Merchant Center can fix some images automatically, for instance by removing a detected promotional overlay. Check the result on your best sellers. Product Studio removes or replaces backgrounds, generates scenes and upscales resolution. Availability varies by country, so check what your account offers before building a process on it.

AI-generated visuals: stay true to the product

Generating a setting around the product is allowed. Changing the product itself (color, shape, material, included accessories) risks a disapproval and returns, because the shopper receives something other than what they saw. Google also asks you to keep the IPTC metadata on AI-generated images, such as TrainedAlgorithmicMedia. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act has required detectable marking of generated visuals since 2 August 2026, with a grace period to 2 December 2026 for tools already on the market. Standard retouching (cutouts, upscaling, color correction) is out of scope. Our article on the EU AI Act and AI-generated e-commerce visuals covers these obligations, and our guide to images, videos and AI compliance in Merchant Center lists Google’s rules.

Generating lifestyle visuals from the catalog

Few catalogs have an in-context photo for every product. Feed Enrich, Dataïads’ product feed optimization tool, starts from the images already in your feed: cutouts, crops to each channel’s native formats, generated lifestyle scenes and editorialized packshots. These visuals are published with the enriched titles and attributes in a supplemental feed, without touching the source feed.

Diagnostics: errors, warnings and disapprovals

The diagnostics view (“Products”, then “Needs attention” in Merchant Center Next) sorts issues into three levels.

• Account-level issues. These affect the whole catalog. The most serious is a misrepresentation suspension, often triggered by missing contact details, a return policy that can’t be found, or inconsistent information between the site and the account.
• Disapproved products. The product stops serving entirely, in one or more countries or programs. A price mismatch, a broken link or a policy violation is enough.
• Warnings. The product stays live but with limited performance. A missing GTIN or a low-quality image fall into this group.

Each issue shows how many products are affected, which attribute is at fault and, usually, a link to the relevant Google policy. Export the list, sort by product count or revenue, and clear whatever blocks your best sellers first.

Fixing the most common Merchant Center disapprovals

The fix almost always happens at the source (platform, PIM, export), then flows through to Merchant Center. Patching it in Merchant Center alone with a rule hides the symptom until the next catalog change.

Price or availability mismatch

Google compares the feed with the product page. A price gap, a promotion live on the site but missing from the feed, or a product listed in stock when it has sold out will all trigger a disapproval. Usual causes: a feed refreshed once a day while prices change more often, a different currency or tax treatment, or a page that defaults to another variant’s price. Increase fetch frequency, align the page’s structured data with the feed, and turn on automatic item updates, which let Google temporarily correct price and stock from your site.

Missing or incorrect GTIN

A missing GTIN limits how a branded product serves. An invalid GTIN, or one belonging to another product, raises an error. Get codes from manufacturers or your PIM, validate the check digit, and set identifier_exists to no only for products that have no code (handmade goods, private label without GTINs).

Image issues

The usual reasons: image too small (Google asks for at least 100 × 100 pixels, 250 × 250 for apparel), promotional text or a logo overlaid on the image, a generic placeholder, or a URL Google’s crawler can’t reach. Serve a main image on a plain background and put styled shots in lifestyle_image_link. The images and visuals section above covers the rules in detail.

Landing page unavailable

A 404, a redirect to the homepage, a page blocked by robots.txt or one that requires login: Google can’t verify the product and disapproves it. Allow Googlebot and Storebot-Google, and drop products from the feed once they’re removed from the site.

Missing shipping

In many countries Google requires shipping costs for every product. An incomplete shipping rule (one region or weight band not covered) can disapprove part of the catalog.

Policy violations

Some products fall into restricted categories: healthcare, dangerous products, alcohol, adult content. Others get disapproved for unverifiable claims in the title or description. Read the cited policy, fix what you can, then request a review from diagnostics if you think the decision is wrong.

Once fixed, the product is re-checked the next time the source is processed. A manual review usually takes a few business days. For a fuller prioritization method, see our guide to fixing Shopping feed errors.

Merchant Center Next and AI features

Since 2023, Google has gradually rolled out a new interface, Merchant Center Next, which has become the standard version. The visible changes:

• simpler navigation built around products, performance and account status;
• “feeds” renamed “data sources”;
• the option to create products from your website, without a file;
• a view of products that need action, grouped by issue.

Google has also added generative AI features. Product Studio helps produce visuals: removing or replacing backgrounds, generating scenes, upscaling resolution. Availability varies by country and changes often, so check what your account actually offers before building a process around it. Generated images still have to follow product policies: a visual that alters the product’s actual appearance risks a disapproval.

Merchant Center checklist

Before chasing performance gains, make sure the foundation holds.

• Website verified and claimed, contact details identical on the site and in the account.
• Return policy and shipping rules set up for every target country.
• Stable id values, never recycled from one product to another.
• Price and availability matching the product page, with fetch frequency suited to how often they change.
• GTINs filled in for every branded product.
• Clean main image, plus additional and lifestyle images.
• Structured titles with brand, product type and the attributes shoppers care about.
• google_product_category, product_type and apparel attributes complete.
• Custom labels defined to steer campaigns by margin, season or performance.
• Free listings enabled, local inventory connected if you run stores.
• Diagnostics reviewed weekly, with a named owner for fixes.

If you’d like to know where your catalog stands against this list, request a free product feed audit. We review your attributes, errors and disapprovals, and tell you which fixes to tackle first.

FAQ

What is Google Merchant Center used for?

It’s Google’s free tool for uploading and managing your catalog data. Google uses that data to show your products in Shopping ads, Performance Max, free listings, Google Maps and its AI-assisted product results.

Is Google Merchant Center free?

Yes. Opening an account, uploading products and appearing in free listings cost nothing. You only pay for the Google Ads campaigns that use those products.

Why are my products disapproved in Merchant Center?

The most common reasons are a price or stock status that doesn’t match the product page, a non-compliant image, an unreachable landing page, a missing or wrong GTIN, missing shipping costs and Google policy violations. Diagnostics shows the exact reason for each product.

How long does it take for a fixed product to be approved again?

The product is re-checked the next time the data source is processed. A manual review request usually takes a few business days. An account suspension can take longer.

What’s the difference between an error and a warning in GMC?

An error stops the product from serving: it’s disapproved. A warning leaves the product live but flags missing or low-quality data that limits its visibility.

What is Merchant Center Next?

It’s the new version of the Merchant Center interface, now the standard one. It simplifies navigation, renames feeds as data sources, lets you create products from your website and adds AI tools such as Product Studio.

Does Merchant Center matter for AI Mode and ChatGPT?

For Google, yes: Merchant Center data feeds the Shopping Graph used in AI Overviews and AI Mode. ChatGPT doesn’t read your account, but a complete, well-structured feed can be reused for OpenAI’s merchant program and other assistants.

Do conversational attributes improve Shopping ranking?

Google doesn’t document any ranking effect. These six optional fields (questions and answers, related products, PDF documents, a family title, variant axes and internal popularity) feed AI Mode, Gemini and the Business Agent. They have no effect on product approval and are best sent through a supplemental source.

Which images does Merchant Center disapprove?

Images that are too small (under 100 × 100 pixels, 250 × 250 for apparel), images carrying promotional text, a watermark, a border or a retailer logo, placeholders, and images that don’t show the product being sold. Keep a main image on a plain background and put in-context shots in lifestyle_image_link.