Common errors in the Google Merchant Center and how to fix them

In this article, we will talk about the common errors in the Google Merchant Center and we bring you some solutions and tips on how to fix them.

What actually is a product feed? In their most basic form, product data feeds are CSV, TXT or XML files containing some product information. Product feeds supply the content that is presented on many kinds of e-commerce websites such as search engines, price comparison websites, affiliate networks, and other similar aggregators of e-commerce information.

More about feeds

Product data feeds are often delivered between manufacturers and retailers and are also used within a variety of online marketing channels that help shoppers locate the product they wish to purchase and drive the traffic to the retailers’ website. These marketing channels include:

1. Price comparison websites – Feeds are the product descriptive content needed to run sites that compare pricing, attributes, and availability.
2. Paid search affiliates – PPC campaigns use API’s that receive a range of attributes within product feeds to determine campaign keywords and bidding.
3. Affiliate networks – affiliate networks funnel products though their platforms from merchants to affiliates.
4. Marketplaces – receive product feeds from their merchants (eBay, Amazon, etc.).
5. Social Networks – can accept product feeds from merchants to list products (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

Common errors in the Google Merchant Center

It can happen to anyone. One day you just log in to your Merchant Center account and you see a lot of red alerts everywhere. But why? We will look into that. The first thing you need to do is to learn the difference between Errors, Warnings, and Notifications in the Google Merchant Center.

Errors – These means only one thing. Something is bad. They usually indicate account suspension or item disapproval. Products won’t appear in Google Shopping searches due to some mistakes.

Warnings – These are not that big problems like account suspension or item disapproval. However, it could do in the future. Warnings can hurt the performance of your product listing ads.

Notifications – They are the suggestion to optimize your product information. They won’t affect your products from showing but Google lets you know that, product data can be improved.

We will sum up 7 basic errors that can occur in your Merchant Center account.

1. Rejection due to Google policies

Google has a restricted product policy. This can easily make you trouble with your ads. For example, Google automatically rejects the promotion of products that are dangerous, restricted by the country’s government, trademarked, etc. For example, Google may consider any products as dangerous, such as ammunition, switchblades, firecrackers and many more.

How to fix this?

Try to avoid adding products to the Google Merchant Center that violates Google policies. Also keep in mind, where you are advertising these products. Every product you advertise must be legal. Keep in mind not to fail to provide proper product description and product images, which again, leads to a policy violation.

2. Incorrect price and availability

This is a common mistake that people do. The prices that you submit to your feed must match with the same price on your website or landing page. Google is searching everywhere so he can be sure it matches. If any variance found, those products will not be approved. This error can occur when your feed is not fresh or well updated.

How to fix this?

The fix is simple. You need to keep your prices updated. You can make a separate sheet for the discounted products and make a fetch from the original Google sheet. When there is a sale or promotion, you should change the sale price and not the actual price of the product.

3. Wrong category names or no categories at all

Google Merchant Center offers a finite number of product categories available for your products. If you are submitting feed without category or wrong category name, there will be an error. You need to have product categories set right to avoid any errors. Your product categories must always match the categories provided by the Google Merchant Center.

How to fix this?

To fix this problem is to use Google’s taxonomy while filling the “google_product_category” field. Keep in mind that you will still be able to use your categories in “product_type“.

4. Invalid shipping or tax

Within Google Merchant Center, many people forget to set up their tax and shipping information. Imagine ordering something without address, of course it can’t work.

How to fix this?

To set up tax, you need to go to tax information in your Merchant Center account, then go to shopping rule and set up shipping from your settings. If you need help with this, then you can check Google Help Center guide.

5. What is GTIN and its errors (invalid or missing values)

The Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is an identifier for trade items. Such identifiers are used to look up product information in a database (often by entering the number through a barcode scanner pointed at an actual product) which may belong to a retailer.

At this time, Google requires GTIN for all new products, which have had the GTIN assigned by the manufacturer. Google use is to understand and classify products. Your ads are showing for more relevant searches and that cause more conversion rate.

Your errors may come from the invalid GTIN issue or missing GTIN issue.

How to fix this

Make sure to provide an accurate GTIN for all products that require them. If you don’t know if your products need a GTIN or not, check Google’s guide.

6. Invalid images, product titles and descriptions

As you can notice, Google takes data very seriously. Product title, description and images are very important to have. These attributes are used to match products with users search results. Google algorithm is mainly focused on product title and product description to show particulate products on the search results.

How to fix this

The first step is to check the official Google Merchant Center guidelines. Make sure that your titles and descriptions comply with them appropriately. The most common mistakes are -> Too long product title, too long/short description, invalid image URL, special characters in your image, name or any other text, repetition of words in your product description etc. Check all of these mistakes if there’s nothing wrong in your feed.

7. Targeting more countries with one domain

Remember, if you will use the same data for more countries, there will be errors for sure. Each product feed is required to be localized, so it makes it unique. For example, prices in the local currency, titles and descriptions in the local language.

How to fix this

The fix for this is simple. Just don’t use the same product feed for multiple countries without editing it. Also, you should never target these countries with a single website. Make more of them for every country you want to advertise in.

Why there are so many people turning to BlueWinston?

In BlueWinston, thanks to your feed you can cover up to five types of Google advertising campaigns to get the best results and maximize your sales.

Types of product-text campaigns you can create with BlueWinston:

• Product text ads for specific products (e.g., “iPhone 11 Pro Max 256GB Silver”)
• Product-group text ads (e.g., “iPhone 11 Pro Max”)
• Dynamic Search Ads for Products (useful as a complement to advertising those products that have low Google search volume)
• Human-search based ads
• Smart Shopping Ads (presents the highest level of automation)