A product feed is one of the ways to get products into Merchant Center. Merchant Center Help lists six, and according to it, products added automatically from your website's structured data can show in Shopping too. When you use a feed, Google takes your product data for Shopping from it. Which data point is required is set by the product data specification.
Your e-commerce platform may have generated the feed for you, and Merchant Center still reports issues on some products. The platform's export doesn't have to contain everything the specification requires.
I'll show you what a feed is and how it gets into Merchant Center. Then we'll go through the data that, according to Merchant Center Help, it can't be missing.
What a product feed is and how it gets into Merchant Center
A product feed is a file with your product data. Google takes the required details for showing products in Shopping from it, and Merchant Center can fetch it on a schedule. You'll find the full list of fields in the product data specification in Merchant Center Help.
Merchant Center Help lists six ways to get products in: automatically from your website, by connecting your e-commerce platform, with a file, through Google Sheets, manually and through the API. Connecting your e-commerce platform doesn't need a file URL; it works by linking the accounts. For a file that Merchant Center should fetch on a schedule, you enter a URL that points directly to the file. That way you don't have to upload the file by hand after every change.
How often Merchant Center fetches the file from the URL is set by the schedule. You pick the frequency and time from a drop-down menu when you set it up, as described in the Help article on updating a data source on a schedule.
What the feed can't be missing
The product data specification requires seven basic data points for every product: a unique ID, title (title), description (description), price, availability, a link to the product page and a link to the image.
For identifiers, the rules differ by type of product. Google wants a brand (brand) for all new products except movies, books and music recordings. GTIN is required for all products with a known GTIN. A Herman Miller office chair has a manufacturer code, so it must have it in the feed.
You only submit an MPN when the product has no manufacturer-assigned GTIN. The identifier_exists attribute says whether a product has unique identifiers, meaning GTIN, MPN and brand. Goods without them get the value false, for example handmade or custom-made items. A typical case is a hand-sewn leather wallet from your own workshop with no GTIN and no MPN.
Decision
Which product identifier to fill in
Does the product have a manufacturer GTIN, like a Herman Miller office chair?
Yes Submit the GTIN. It is required for products with a known code.No
No GTIN, but an MPN?
Yes Submit the MPN.No
- Goods without identifiers, like a hand-sewn leather wallet from your own workshop: set identifier_exists to false.
The google_product_category field holds the product category as defined by Google. If you leave it empty, Google categorizes the product itself. Assigning it manually is your choice.
| Data point | When it's required | What to do if you don't have it |
|---|---|---|
ID, title, description, price, availability, product link, image link | for every product | fill it in your e-commerce store, which the feed is built from |
brand | for new products except movies, books and music recordings | submit the manufacturer's brand |
| GTIN | for products with a known GTIN | if the manufacturer didn't assign one, submit the MPN |
| MPN | only when the product has no manufacturer GTIN | mark goods without identifiers with identifier_exists = false |
google_product_category | if it's missing, Google categorizes the product itself | assign it manually if you want to set the category yourself |
Fashion and conversational attributes
For clothing and accessories, Google also wants age group, gender and color for free listings. Size is required only for clothing and shoes. It isn't required for accessories like handbags or jewelry. For paid campaigns, these requirements apply only in Brazil, France, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and the US. Czechia isn't on that list.
So a men's Adidas running T-shirt doesn't need the fashion data for paid campaigns in Czechia, but it does in Germany. For free listings, it needs it in both countries. If you sell the T-shirt to Germany too, fill the data in right away.
Merchant Center Help also names six conversational attributes: question_and_answer, document_link, related_product, item_group_title, variant_option and popularity_rank. They are meant to help AI systems and conversational agents understand product details. What goes into which field I cover in a separate article on how to fill in conversational attributes.
Where to start checking your feed
Start the check in Merchant Center. The products overview shows the status of individual products and a history chart that tells you how the status changed over a selected period. If the chart shows a jump, first find out whether the export from your e-commerce store changed that day.
What to do after the first look?
- Disapproved products. Go through them using the overview of 10 most common disapproval reasons. Look for the cause in the data the feed is built from.
- Required data. Take the table above and go through the export column by column. For branded goods, start with GTIN; for your own production, with the
identifier_existsattribute. - Missing values. If your e-commerce store has nowhere to store a data point or the export doesn't send it, add it without a developer through a supplemental feed.
If you don't want to watch the feed yourself, see how my PPC campaign management for e-commerce stores works. Before you start fixing, run the feed through the test in the box below.
Summary
- A feed is one of six ways into Merchant Center. When you use it, it is Google's source of required data on every product.
- Fetching is controlled by a schedule you set. You choose the frequency and time yourself, and you can also upload the file without a schedule.
- The base is seven data points plus identifiers. Brand, GTIN and MPN depend on the type of product. You mark a product without codes with the
identifier_existsattribute set tofalse. - For fashion, the country matters. Age group, gender, color and, for clothing and shoes, size are required for paid campaigns only in six countries, and Czechia isn't one of them.
- Start with product status in Merchant Center. Then run the feed through the free test and fill the gaps with product feed enrichment.
A feed from your platform is a start. Whether it holds up only shows when you compare it with the Merchant Center specification.
Open the products overview in Merchant Center and, for products with an issue, go through the seven basic data points and the identifiers using the table in this article.
