What is Google Shopping feed optimization, and what do I fix first?

Google’s product data specification marks every attribute Required, It depends or Optional. Leave out a required one and, in Google’s words, the product won’t be able to serve in ads and free listings. An optional one is there to help the product’s performance.

Price and availability have to match the page. Google asks for a price that matches your landing page and your checkout, and it disapproves a product marked in stock that the page or the checkout shows as out of stock. To keep both current, Google suggests automated feed delivery, the Merchant API, structured data markup or automatic item updates. Mark a product you can’t sell for now as out of stock: Google says not to delete it.

Images. Google recommends around 1500 x 1500 pixels, and has announced a minimum of 500 x 500 for all products from January 31, 2027. The product should fill 75% to 90% of the frame, with no promotional overlay, border or placeholder. Google says products with high quality images are more likely to show for relevant searches.

• Length. A title may run to 150 characters, and Google truncates a longer one. Google says to use all 150, and that shoppers will usually notice only the first 70 or fewer, depending on the screen.
• Order. Put the most important details first, and key details at the front especially if they can’t be seen in the image.
• What to include. The product’s name, its brand, and details specific to its kind: Google’s examples are “maternity” for apparel and “waterproof” for mascara, and its tips add strong brand names, age group, gender, size, color and personalization options.
• Brand. Add it where it’s a differentiating factor. Google’s case is a store that sells products from many different brands, so shoppers can see who makes each one.
• Variants. Give each variant’s title the detail that sets it apart, as in Google’s example, “Google T-Shirt, Red”.
• What to leave out. Promotional text, capital letters for emphasis, and words from another language unless they’re well understood.
• The page. The title describes the product on its landing page, and Google’s tips say to use the same title there. A title written with generative AI goes in the structured title attribute.

You’ll see a fixed formula quoted for each category: brand, then product type, then color and size for clothing, and so on. Google’s pages read for this guide give no such order. They give the rule under it: lead with what a shopper would search by and can’t see in the picture, inside the first 70 characters.

The description is required too, up to 5,000 characters. Google asks for the most important details in the first 160 to 500, the product’s most relevant features and visual attributes, and no promotional text, links or comparisons with other products.

• GTIN. A Global Trade Item Number, assigned by the manufacturer. Google recommends it for every product that has one, and says retailers who added correct GTINs saw a 20% increase in clicks on average. A product with a missing or incorrect GTIN may have limited visibility, and one that has a GTIN you didn’t submit could be disapproved. Never guess one. A product you make yourself or sell under a store brand may have none, and Google then asks for its brand and MPN.
• Brand. It’s shown to customers. Use your store’s name where you manufacture the product or sell it under a private label.
• Google product category. Google assigns every product a category from its own taxonomy, and the attribute overrides it where Google gets it wrong. That matters because some categories, apparel among them, bring required attributes of their own. Use the most specific category that fits: Google’s tips ask for at least 2 to 3 levels.
• Product type. Your own categorization, with every level you have, broad to specific and > between levels. Google’s example is Home > Women > Dresses > Maxi Dresses. Your campaigns can sort and report by it, as the section on listing groups shows.

Merchant Center holds the data, so start there:

1. 01In Merchant Center, go to Products. The All products tab lists each product with its visibility and status: Approved is showing on Google, Limited is showing only in some instances, and Not approved can’t be shown.
2. 02Select Products › Needs attention. Three cards at the top name the issues with the biggest impact and how many products each affects, and View products on a card lists them.
3. 03Under the cards is every product with an issue. Filter it by click potential, issue, status or title, and select a row’s What needs attention column to read what’s wrong.

Two of Google’s pages still call this tab Merchant Center’s Diagnostics. The page about the tab itself calls it Needs attention.

Google Ads shows the same products as your campaigns see them:

1. 01In Google Ads, go to Campaigns › Products. At the account level it covers Standard Shopping and Performance Max. One of Google’s pages reaches the same table by choosing a campaign first, then Products › Products in its menu.
2. 02Read the Product status column and the Issues column to its right. Issues from the product data read Missing identifier: brand, MPN, GTIN, Price mismatch or Inaccurate availability. Issues from the campaign read Low maximum CPC, High target ROAS or No campaigns advertising this product.
3. 03Open the Diagnostics tab to see which products can show: Eligible, ready to show in ads; Eligible (limited), within policy but with limited performance; and Not eligible.

The Products table takes columns for Title, Brand, Item ID, Product type, Category and Custom label, so it shows your product data beside what each product spent. Where an issue is a target set too high, see the Target CPA and Target ROAS guide.

1. 01In Google Ads, go to Campaigns › Products and set the last 30 days. From the columns icon choose Modify columns and add Title, Brand and Item ID.
2. 02Select the download icon above the table, then Download, and open the file in a sheet with the title in column A and the brand in column B.
3. 03Add a column with the formula below and fill it down. It reads TRUE where the first 70 characters of the title name the brand.
4. 04Filter to FALSE, sort by cost, and read from the top.

=ISNUMBER(SEARCH(B2,LEFT(A2,70)))

The formula ignores case and nothing else, so a brand spelled with a hyphen in one place and a space in the other reads FALSE. And a FALSE row isn’t always a title to rewrite: if a title names a different brand, or none of a brand’s titles name it, the brand attribute may be the one that’s wrong.

A campaign chooses its products by their attributes. In Performance Max an asset group’s listing groups include or exclude products. In Standard Shopping an ad group’s product groups also carry the bid. Both divide by category, brand, item ID, condition, product type, channel and custom labels, and a new Shopping campaign starts with one group, All products, that holds everything.

Divide a group and an Everything else group stays at that level for the products that match none of the values you picked. That is where a product with no product type, brand or label lands. If that group is excluded and no other takes the product, nothing advertises it: Google says a product showing as Excluded isn’t part of any active listing group.

• Custom labels are five attributes, custom label 0 to 4, that mean whatever you decide: Google’s examples are season, selling rate, price range, margin and release year. Customers never see them, and each takes up to 1,000 different values.
• Item IDs go out of date. A group that lists products one ID at a time sends every product added since to Everything else. Google’s developer guide says listing groups in Performance Max work best on groups of products, and to prefer that over individual item IDs.
• Google flags the gap. The Issues column reads No campaigns advertising this product, with the reason: the product or its listing group is excluded, no group includes it, or the campaign’s inventory filter leaves it out. The recommendation Target all eligible Shopping products offers a catch-all campaign for them.

To see the groups, open the Performance Max campaign and go to Asset groups › Listing groups, or open a Shopping campaign’s ad group and select Product groups.

The lasting fix is in the store or file the products come from. Where that’s slow to change, Merchant Center has three ways to change what Google reads, from one product to all of them:

• Edit one product. On the Products page, select the product’s title, then Edit product, change the attribute and select Save. Google’s pages read for this guide don’t say whether the edit outlasts the data source’s next update, so check the product afterwards.
• A supplemental data source, the supplemental feed of older guides: a second file, Google Sheet or API source that adds or updates attributes for products already in your primary source, matched by product ID. To change titles, give it each product’s ID and its new title. It can’t add or remove products. Select the gear icon, then Data sources › Supplemental sources › Add supplemental product data.
• An attribute rule, once a feed rule, changes an attribute across a data source, on every upload. Go to Data sources, select a source under Product sources, then Attribute rules › Add attribute rule. Rules can Set to, Prepend, Append or Find & Replace. Select Save as draft, Test rules, then Apply changes.

The last two need the Advanced data source management add-on, turned on under Settings › Add-ons. Google’s own example of a rule is the fix for a missing brand: set the title to the brand, a space, then the title.

Goldbeater reads your products through Google Ads, as your campaigns see them: each product’s title, brand, product type, category, custom labels and status, with what it took in your ads. It doesn’t read the feed file or Merchant Center itself, so it never sees a description or an image. Every day it raises:

• Titles that leave out the brand, or name the wrong one. Where the products that showed in your ads in the last 30 days carry more than one brand, the titles that don’t name their brand in the first 70 characters, case and punctuation aside, and the ones naming another of your brands. Where none of a brand’s titles name it and your other titles name theirs, it says the brand is likelier wrong.
• Products missing what your listing groups sort by. Products that can show, in a feed you advertise from, with no brand, product type or custom label that one of your own listing groups divides by, where that drops them into an excluded Everything else, or onto its catch-all bid in Standard Shopping.
• Products no campaign advertises. Google’s own count for each feed you advertise from, with what the products are and which excluded group catches them.
• Listing groups naming products your feed no longer has. Included groups in an asset group or ad group that no product can fill: none that can show today, and none that showed in the past year.
• A feed most of which can’t show. A feed where the products now disapproved or out of stock took more of its clicks in the last 30 days than the products still showing, by more than chance explains. The finding starts with the stock data, and never says to remove the products.

Those are the rugs read above: the finding lists the 9 rows the sheet marked FALSE, costliest first, and says how many name the brand too late to be seen. Each of these findings is advice. Product data is changed in Merchant Center or your store, and a listing group is rebuilt in Google Ads, so Goldbeater says which products, what to add and where, and drafts no change.

Products Merchant Center disapproves or limits, a missing GTIN among them, are in the Merchant Center suspension guide, and the audit checklist has every Shopping line with where to find it.

What is Google Shopping feed optimization?

It’s making the product data in Merchant Center complete, accurate and specific. Shopping ads have no keywords, so Google decides which searches a product shows for from its title and attributes. Fix the required attributes first, then titles, identifiers and categories, then the attributes your campaigns sort by.

How long can a Google Shopping product title be?

150 characters, and Google truncates a longer one. Google says shoppers will usually notice only the first 70 or fewer, depending on the screen, so the most important details go first.

Do I need a GTIN for Google Shopping?

Google recommends one for every product whose manufacturer assigned it, and says retailers who added correct GTINs saw a 20% increase in clicks on average. Without it a product may have limited visibility. If a product has none, don’t invent one: Google asks for its brand and MPN.

What’s the difference between Google product category and product type?

Google product category is Google’s own taxonomy: Google assigns it automatically, and you set it to correct it. Product type is your own categorization, written broad to specific, for dividing listing groups and reports in Google Ads.

What is a supplemental feed in Merchant Center?

Merchant Center’s help calls it a supplemental data source: a second file, sheet or API source that adds or updates attributes for products already in your primary source, matched by product ID. It can’t add or remove products, and it needs the Advanced data source management add-on.

Why are some of my products not in any Shopping campaign?

Usually because a listing group or product group excludes them, or no group includes them. A product missing the product type or custom label your groups divide by falls into Everything else, and so does one added after a group was built from item IDs. Google Ads marks these No campaigns advertising this product.