Merchant Center product feed checker and validator

Check your Google Merchant Center product feed: a data score from 0 to 100, a prioritised list of feed errors and field coverage. Below is a sample report on demo data; you can check your own feed by link in the dashboard, free on every plan.

Demo data This is a sample on demo data: a fictional shop, Demo Store, 240 products. The rules and the score calculation are the same as in the service.

What the checker looks for

22 types of problems in the title, link, price, image, description, brand, category and barcode. For each one the checker shows how many products are affected and how to fix it.

• No product IDEvery product needs a unique id: Merchant matches the product and its updates by it.
• Duplicate IDsThe same id in different rows: Google takes only one of them. Make the ids unique.
• No titleAdd a title: without it the product is not shown.
• Titles are too shortAdd the product type and key factual features without turning the title into a keyword list.
• Titles longer than 150 charactersShorten them to 150 characters: Google cuts off the rest.
• Titles in CAPITAL LETTERSRewrite in normal case: all caps can lead to disapproval.
• Promotional words in titlesRemove “sale”, “discount”, “free shipping” and similar: it violates Google's policy.
• No product linkEvery product must lead to its own page on your site.
• Invalid linksA link must start with https:// and lead to the product page.
• No main imageAdd image_link: a product without an image is not shown.
• No priceProvide a price with a currency, for example 1990 UAH.
• Invalid priceThe price must be a number above zero with a currency.
• No availabilityProvide in stock, out of stock or preorder.
• Unknown availability valueUse in stock, out of stock, preorder or backorder.
• No descriptionAdd a description: it helps Google understand the product and match queries.
• Descriptions shorter than 100 charactersDescribe what the product is and what its properties are.
• Descriptions contain HTML or linksKeep plain text: Google does not accept tags and links in descriptions.
• Brand is not filledProvide the manufacturer's brand; for your own product use a stable brand name.
• Placeholder brand (No Name etc.)Replace “No Name” or “Unbranded” with the real brand or remove the value.
• No categoryAdd google_product_category (or at least your own product_type).
• No GTIN / MPNA barcode (GTIN) or the manufacturer part number (MPN) helps Google recognise the product.
• Google attributes without the g: prefixIn an RSS file, Google attributes (image_link, price, brand, google_product_category and so on) must carry the g: prefix and the xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0" declaration. Without them Google does not see them, so we count such fields as missing: this is the cause and carries no penalty of its own.

How the score is calculated

• The score is 100 minus penalties for the types of problems found. The penalty of a type is its maximum multiplied by the share of products it affects (at least 1 point if the problem exists).
• “Fix” items stop a product from showing or get it disapproved (no price, image or link). “Opportunity” items strengthen the data (description, brand, category, barcode).
• 90 points or more: the feed is basically ready. 70 to 89: fixes needed. Below 70: many gaps.
• The score checks that the data is present and well-formed against open rules. It does not replace Google's decision: the final status of a product comes from Merchant Center.

How to check your own feed

1. Sign up for free and open “Feed check” in the dashboard.
2. Paste a public link to a CSV, XML or YML file (https, no login). CSV, TSV, Google RSS/XML, Atom and YML are supported, up to 5 MB and the first 1,000 rows.
3. Get the score, a list of problems with example product IDs and the field coverage. The file content and the link are not stored.

Feed check questions