Product feed errors in Google Merchant Center silently cost you impressions, traffic, and revenue. This guide covers the 8 most common error types, what causes each one, and exactly how to fix it.
Your feed price differs from your website price. Either VAT inclusive vs exclusive inconsistency or a sale that started/ended between feed refreshes.
Fix
Update feeds daily or twice daily. Ensure consistent VAT treatment. Trigger manual feed refresh when changing prices.
✖Missing required field
Critical
Cause
A required attribute (id, title, description, link, image_link, price, or availability) is absent from one or more product rows.
Fix
Map all required fields in your feed configuration. Trajekt validates required fields before submission and flags gaps.
⚠Image too small
Warning
Cause
Product images don't meet minimum size requirements: 100x100px for non-apparel, 250x250px for apparel. Recommended: 800x800px+.
Fix
Use full-size product images. Many Shopify/WooCommerce thumbnail URLs return small images — map to the full-size image URL.
✖Unavailable landing page
Critical
Cause
The product URL in your feed returns a 404, 500, or is blocked by your server or CDN.
Fix
Ensure product URLs are stable. Update your feed daily so discontinued products are removed before Google crawls them.
⚠Missing GTIN
Warning
Cause
Branded products without a GTIN (EAN barcode). Google requires GTINs for branded products that have manufacturer barcodes.
Fix
Map your barcode/EAN field to gtin. For genuinely own-brand or custom products: set identifier_exists: no.
✖Duplicate item ID
Critical
Cause
Two or more products share the same id field value. Every product row must have a unique identifier.
Fix
Use your platform's variant-level IDs (Shopify variant ID, WooCommerce variation ID) rather than parent product IDs.
✖Policy violation
Critical
Cause
Your product or website violates Google Shopping Ads Policies. More serious than data quality issues and requires a formal review request.
Fix
Address the specific policy cited (deceptive pricing, prohibited product, inadequate policies). Submit a review request after fixing.
⚠Availability mismatch
Warning
Cause
Your feed says 'in stock' but your website says 'out of stock', or vice versa.
Fix
More frequent feed refreshes. Daily updates ensure availability is accurate within 24 hours of stock changes.
My products disappeared from Google Shopping
If you had products showing and they suddenly disappeared, the most likely causes are:
1.
Feed expired — Products expire in Merchant Center if a feed hasn’t been updated in 30+ days. Set up a scheduled fetch URL rather than manual uploads to prevent this.
2.
Campaign budget exhausted — Check your Google Ads campaigns aren’t paused or out of budget. This looks like products disappearing but is actually ads stopping.
3.
Account-level suspension — Repeated policy violations can trigger account suspension. Check Merchant Center for any account-level notifications.
4.
Merchant Center / Google Ads link broken — If you changed Google accounts or your Merchant Center was transferred, the Ads link may have broken. Check Merchant Center → Settings → Linked accounts.
Prevent errors before they happen
Trajekt validates your feed against the most common error causes — price format, required fields, image URL accessibility, URL status — before every submission to Merchant Center.
The most common reasons products don't show: (1) they're disapproved in Merchant Center — check the Diagnostics tab for specific error codes, (2) your Shopping campaign is paused or has exhausted its daily budget, (3) products are excluded by a feed filter rule, (4) your Merchant Center account isn't linked to your Google Ads account, (5) the products haven't been processed yet after a recent feed submission — allow 24-72 hours.
Policy violations are the most serious Merchant Center disapproval type. They indicate your product or website violates Google's Shopping policies — prohibited products, deceptive pricing, inadequate policy pages, or misleading product descriptions. Unlike data quality disapprovals which fix themselves when you correct your feed, policy violations require a formal review request after remediation and can escalate to account suspension if repeated.
Price mismatch means the price in your feed doesn't match the price on your product page. Fix by: updating your feed more frequently (twice daily for merchants who change prices often), ensuring your feed and website both show VAT-inclusive prices, refreshing your feed immediately after any price change, and checking that sale prices haven't expired in your store but are still in your feed.
Missing value errors indicate a required or recommended field is absent in your product's feed data. Required fields (id, title, description, link, image_link, price, availability) must be present for every product. Recommended fields like gtin, brand, and google_product_category generate warnings when absent. Trajekt validates required fields before feed submission and flags missing data before it causes disapprovals.
Products disappear when they fail validation in a new feed submission. Common causes: you changed the product ID (Merchant Center treats it as a new product and the old one is removed), the product URL now returns a 404, the price format changed and is now invalid, or an image URL broke. Check the Merchant Center Diagnostics tab immediately after any feed submission that causes product count changes.
Google disapproves images that are: too small (under 100x100px for non-apparel, 250x250px for apparel), contain promotional text overlays ('Sale', 'Free shipping'), have excessive borders, or return 404 errors. Use high-quality product images at 800x800px minimum. For apparel: show on model or mannequin, neutral background. Remove any text from product images.
This error means the product URL in your feed returns an error (404, 500) or is inaccessible to Google's crawler. Causes: you've deleted or moved a product since your last feed submission, your server temporarily went down, Cloudflare or another WAF is blocking Google's crawler, or the URL format changed. Fix by ensuring product URLs are stable and accessible, and refreshing your feed daily so deleted products are removed promptly.
Check Google Merchant Center Diagnostics at least weekly if you're actively managing Shopping campaigns. For active campaigns with high spend, check every 2-3 days. Set up Merchant Center email alerts so you're notified immediately when new disapprovals or account-level issues appear. Trajekt sends notifications when feed runs fail, so you can investigate before the next processing cycle.