When Google Merchant Center rejects a product, the cause is usually not Google. It is the data. A title that shouts, a price without the right tax treatment, a made-up barcode or a missing colour on a shirt can all keep a product out of Shopping results. Fixing the data once is cheaper than fighting disapprovals one by one.
This guide is a checklist for Shopify store owners who want to sell through Google. It follows Google's product data specification, a very long page that I read in parts on 11 November 2026. Google changes it often, and some rules depend on the country, so check the current page before you rely on a figure. I did not research how a particular Shopify app maps its fields to Google's attributes, so ask your developer or app vendor about that part.
The seven things every product needs
- id. A unique, stable identifier, up to 50 characters. Do not change it later.
- title. Up to 150 characters of plain text. Google says not to use promotional text or all capitals.
- description. Up to 5,000 characters. No store links and no sales information.
- link. The product page, on a domain you have verified and that Google can crawl.
- image_link. A main image that Googlebot can crawl.
- price. With an ISO 4217 currency code and a period as the decimal separator. A price of zero is generally not allowed.
- availability. In stock, out of stock, preorder or backorder. It must match the product page and its structured data. Preorders also need an availability date.
Check these seven across your whole catalogue before anything else. A spreadsheet export of your products and a filter for blanks is often enough.
Price and tax: the rule that differs by country
Google's page says that in the US and Canada the price should not include tax, while elsewhere it should include VAT or GST. That follows how shoppers see prices in each place. If your Shopify store shows prices one way and your feed sends another, Google can see a mismatch with your product page. Make the feed follow the market. Our guide to Shopify Markets explains how to set up several countries. You can also give a sale price next to the normal price.
The page also asks for a warranty attribute where local rules apply, and gives Quebec as an example.
Titles and descriptions that pass
- A practical order is brand, product type and the key attribute, such as size or colour, so the title says what the product is.
- Do not put promotional text in the title or the description.
- Keep the description about the product. Do not add links to your store or text about sales.
Images
Google accepts JPEG, WebP, PNG, non-animated GIF, BMP and TIFF. It does not accept promotional text, watermarks or borders on the main image, and placeholders are not allowed. The page also says Google has announced a minimum size of 500 by 500 pixels for product images, with enforcement starting on 31 January 2027. Check older products and supplier images first, since they are the likeliest to be small. You can send up to 10 additional images, and an optional video of 6 to 240 seconds. If you use AI to generate images, the page says to keep the embedded metadata that marks them as such.
Brand, GTIN and MPN: do not guess
This is where honest data matters most.
- Brand. Up to 70 characters. Required for new products, except for movie, book and music brands. Use the brand shoppers recognise. Use your own name only if you make the product, sell a private label or customise it. If a product has no brand, leave the field empty. Do not write "N/A", "Generic" or "No brand".
- GTIN. The barcode number: UPC-12, EAN-13, JAN, ISBN-13 or ITF-14, with a valid check digit. Do not guess it. Google says a wrong GTIN gets the product disapproved. For a multipack use the multipack's own number, and for a bundle use the main product's.
- MPN. The manufacturer's part number, up to 70 characters. Needed only when there is no manufacturer GTIN, and only if the manufacturer assigned it. Do not invent one.
- identifier_exists. Defaults to yes. Set it to no only when the identifiers truly do not exist, as with a handmade or unbranded product. Do not set it to no if the product has identifiers.
- condition. New, refurbished or used. Required for used and refurbished goods.
Where do the barcodes come from? Ask your supplier for the manufacturer's GTIN list. If you make the products yourself, you may need to buy numbers from the official barcode body in your country. Do not copy another seller's number.
Variants and apparel
For products that come in sizes or colours, Google asks you to tie the variants together with an item group id of up to 50 characters. The page says it is required for variants in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US, and for all variants in free listings. Clothing adds more. Colour is required for apparel in the same six countries and in free listings, up to 100 characters in total and 40 per colour, with no hex codes, no numbers and no words such as "multicolor" or "see image". Gender (male, female or unisex) and age group (newborn, infant, toddler, kids or adult) are required for apparel in those countries and in free listings. Material can be up to 200 characters.
The page also lists a multipack field and a bundle field for more countries, such as Australia, Czechia, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland. If you sell packs, check those too.
Map each field to a source first
Before anyone edits a product, write down where each Google field gets its value in your store and who can change it. Price and availability come from Shopify itself. Barcodes, brands and conditions may sit in product fields. Colour, material, gender and age group may sit in variant options, tags or custom fields, and different apps map them in different ways. A short table with three columns, Google field, source in Shopify and owner, prevents the common problem of two people fixing the same thing in two places.
A routine that keeps the data clean
- Export your products and check the seven required fields for blanks and oddities.
- Compare prices and availability in the feed with the product page, for each market.
- Check the GTINs, brands and identifier settings for the top 50 sellers first.
- Fix colour, size, gender and age group on apparel, then item group ids.
- Replace small or watermarked images, with a deadline before 31 January 2027.
- Re-run the check after every big import, because a bulk edit can undo a month of work.
Structured data also helps here: if colour, material or care details are stored in custom fields, they are easier to keep consistent. See our guide to metafields and metaobjects, and our Shopify SEO checklist for the rest of search.
After you fix a batch, do not expect every warning to clear at once. The specification page I read does not say how long Google takes to re-read a feed, so check the status screens in Merchant Center, fix the largest group of errors first and leave a few days between rounds of changes so you can see which change helped.
ESTASOFT's SEO page describes our search work. To have your product data reviewed, send a short brief on the contact page.
Sources
- Product data specification (Google Merchant Center Help): required and recommended attributes, limits, price and tax rules, identifiers, images, variants, apparel attributes; a very long page, read in parts on 11 November 2026; page date not shown to me (checked 11 November 2026)