Product data requirements for Google Shopping: A complete reference

What are Google’s product data requirements?

Google Merchant Center uses your product feed to match what you sell to the right search queries and surface it across Shopping ads and free listings. The product data specification organizes the attributes it expects into three tiers:

Your feed can be submitted as a tab-delimited text file (.txt or .tsv), an XML file, or directly through the Content API for Shopping, which Google recommends for large catalogs or those that change frequently. Google updated its specification multiple times in 2025, with notable changes to energy-efficiency labeling for EU-targeted products and installment-payment attributes.

Required Google Shopping feed attributes: What every product must have

Every product in your feed needs these attributes, or it will not serve in Shopping ads or free listings, regardless of product category or target country.

1. ID [id]

Your product’s unique identifier is limited to 50 characters. Use your SKU where possible and keep the ID consistent across updates. Inconsistencies here are a sign of weak product data management, since changing the ID creates a new product entry in Merchant Center rather than updating the existing one.

2. Title [title]

Maximum 150 characters, though only around 70 are typically visible in search results. Accurately describe what you’re selling and match the title on your landing page, since title consistency across channels is a foundational element of a coherent e-commerce content strategy. Don’t include promotional text, all capitals, or gimmicky characters. For variants, include distinguishing features such as color or size directly in the title.

3. Description [description]

Up to 5,000 characters of plain text describing your product. Keep the most relevant information toward the top, since truncation is common, and e-commerce consumer behavior shows shoppers decide quickly based on what appears first. Include only information about the product itself. Links, competitor references, and promotional copy are not permitted.

4. Link [link]

The URL of your product’s landing page. It must start with http or https, use your verified domain, and go directly to the product page. Avoid linking to interstitial pages unless legally required.

5. Image link [image_link]

The URL of your product’s main image. Accepted formats are JPEG, WebP, PNG, non-animated GIF, BMP, and TIFF. Do not submit scaled-up images, thumbnails, placeholder images, or images with promotional text, watermarks, or borders.

6. Price [price]

Submit the price using ISO 4217 currency codes; for example, 15.00 USD. The price must match exactly what is shown on your landing page and at checkout. Price requirements apply equally whether you’re selling on Google or managing listings across competitive retail marketplaces like Temu, where price accuracy is scrutinized at every touchpoint. For the US and Canada, do not include tax in the price value.

7. Availability [availability]

Accepted values are in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder, and backorder, and each must match your landing page and checkout pages exactly, since mismatched stock signals are one of the fastest ways to lose a shopper ready to buy on the digital shelf. Preorder and backorder submissions also require the availability_date attribute.

8. Brand [brand]

Required for all new products except movies, books, and musical recordings. Provide the brand name as consumers recognize it. If your product genuinely has no brand, leave the field empty. Do not submit values like “N/A”, “Generic”, or “No brand”.

9. Condition [condition]

Required if your product is used or refurbished; optional for new products. Accepted values are new, refurbished, and used, and these must be submitted in English.

10. GTIN [gtin]

Strongly recommended when available. GTINs are 8, 12, 13, or 14 digits and must pass check digit validation. Submitting an incorrect GTIN will result in your product being disapproved. Products with a manufacturer-assigned GTIN submitted without one may have limited visibility. Only submit the GTIN if you are certain it is correct. Do not guess or fabricate a value.

Category-specific Google Shopping requirements

Required attributes do not stop at the universal set. Google Merchant Center expects additional category-level attributes, and submitting without them can result in disapproval or limited performance, even when your core attributes are correct.

Apparel and accessories

For apparel products targeted to buyers in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US, the following four attributes move from optional to required:

All four are also required for free listings across all Apparel & Accessories products, regardless of target country.

Electronics and energy-labeled products

Starting April 2025, products targeting European Union countries that are required to display graphical energy-efficiency labels must use the certification [certification] attribute instead of the previous energy_efficiency_class attributes. The certification attribute references product data directly from the EU EPREL database using an authority, name, and code sub-attribute structure; for example, EC: EPREL:123456.

This kind of rolling compliance change is exactly what makes an outdated product feed syndication strategy a liability for teams managing EU-targeted catalogs, since static feed templates have no way to adapt when channel requirements shift mid-cycle.

The energy_efficiency_class, min_energy_efficiency_class, and max_energy_efficiency_class attributes remain available only for products targeting Switzerland, Norway, or the United Kingdom. Products covered by this change include electronic displays, household washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, light sources, and smartphones and tablets starting June 20, 2025.

Product variants

For products that come in multiple versions differing by color, size, material, pattern, age group, or gender, getting your e-commerce product catalog structure right starts with the item group ID [item_group_id] attribute, which tells Google these are versions of the same product rather than separate, unrelated items.

This attribute groups variants together under a shared parent identifier, typically your parent SKU, so Google understands they are versions of the same product rather than separate, unrelated items. Every variant in the group must share the same item_group_id and consistently include the same variant attributes.

Installment payment products

For products sold with an installment payment plan, you must use the installment [installment] attribute to communicate the number of monthly payments, the amount per installment, and any upfront down payment.

The price attribute should reflect the full payment price, and the installment attribute should indicate the alternative payment structure. This attribute is available for Shopping ads and free listings in Latin America across all product categories, and in certain other countries for wireless products and services.

Shipping and tax

Cost requirements for delivery vary by target country and marketplace, and sellers distributing across multiple channels will find that B2B selling platforms such as Alibaba often carry additional tax and shipping rules that Google’s feed requirements don’t account for. 

Most major markets, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US, mandate delivery cost data for both Shopping ads and free listings. 

Tax logic differs by country: the US and Canada exclude it from the submitted price, while most other markets expect VAT or GST to already be factored into the value you submit.

Google Shopping attributes that are optional but directly affect performance

None of the attributes below will cause a disapproval if you leave them out. What they will do is leave your listings with less information than competitors who do submit them: less visibility in filtered search results, fewer rich features in how your products appear, and fewer levers in campaign management. The product data specification marks these as optional, but that doesn’t mean low priority.

1. Additional image link [additional_image_link]

You can submit up to 10 supplementary images per product by including this attribute multiple times in your feed. Unlike the main image, these can show the product in use or include graphics and illustrations. More image angles give shoppers more confidence before they click, and they feed into Google’s image-based surfaces, including Google Images and Google Lens.

2. Product type [product_type]

This is your own category taxonomy, not Google’s. Submitting a full category path, for example, Home > Women > Dresses > Maxi Dresses, gives you more granular control over bidding and reporting in Google Ads Shopping campaigns. Only the first submitted value is used for campaign organization, so make it the most specific path you have.

3. Sale price [sale_price]

Submit this alongside the regular price attribute, not instead of it, when your product is on sale, since how your product appears during price comparison is part of a broader product discovery experience that influences whether shoppers click or scroll past. Google uses the difference between the two values to determine whether to display price-drop badging in search results. The sale price must match your landing page and checkout pages, and it cannot be used to submit member or loyalty prices.

4. MPN [mpn]

The Manufacturer Part Number becomes required if your product has no GTIN, but it is worth submitting even when a GTIN is present. If you’re in electronics and auto parts, where shoppers frequently search by part number, an accurate MPN is one of the more precise product attribute optimizations you can make, helping Google verify product identity and improve match accuracy.

5. Custom labels [custom_label_0–4]

These five attributes don’t affect how your product appears to shoppers. Their value is entirely in campaign management: you can tag products by margin, seasonality, clearance status, price tier, the same internal groupings that feed into digital shelf metrics when you need to bid and report more precisely in Google Ads. You can use up to 1,000 unique values per label across your Merchant Center account.

6. Product highlight [product_highlight]

Submit between 2 and 100 highlights, each up to 150 characters, describing the most relevant features of your product. Keep them factual and product-specific, without promotional text or keyword lists. Where Google surfaces them, they appear as a scannable feature list that strengthens how your product stands out across the e-commerce digital shelf.

7. Material [material] and pattern [pattern]

Both are worth submitting for any product where material or pattern is a deciding factor for buyers. For material, submit one primary material followed by up to two secondary materials separated by a /, for example, cotton/polyester/elastane. For the pattern, only one value per product is accepted.

Common Google Shopping disapproval causes and how to fix them

Product-level issues in Merchant Center fall into two categories: warnings, which limit performance but allow the product to keep showing, and disapprovals, which stop the product from appearing entirely until the issue is resolved. These are the most common causes.

1. Invalid or incorrect GTIN

A GTIN that fails check-digit validation, contains the wrong number of digits, or does not match the submitted brand will result in disapproval of the product. GTINs must be 8, 12, 13, or 14 digits and must be the manufacturer’s assigned value. If you are unsure whether your GTIN is valid, use the GS1 check digit calculator before submitting. Products with a manufacturer-assigned GTIN submitted without one will not be disapproved outright, but will have limited visibility in Shopping results.

2. Price mismatch between feed and landing page

Google crawls your landing pages and compares the submitted price against what it finds. A mismatch makes your product subject to preemptive item disapproval. Make sure the price and currency in your feed match exactly what is shown on your product page and at checkout, and consider enabling automatic item updates in Merchant Center so price changes on your site are reflected in your feed without a manual re-upload.

3. Low-quality or non-compliant images

Images with promotional text, retailer logos, watermarks, or borders cause product-level disapprovals, as do placeholder and generic images that do not show the actual product. Merchant Center offers an automatic image improvements feature that attempts to remove promotional overlays automatically and re-approve the product without manual intervention. If you prefer to fix images directly, submit a new image URL rather than updating the existing one, since changing the filename speeds up the crawl of the replacement image.

4. Missing category-specific attributes

Missing conditionally required attributes is one of the most common disapproval causes across major selling platforms, from apparel size and color on Google to the product data requirements Amazon enforces at the category level, and the fix always starts with knowing which attributes your target channel makes mandatory.

5. Policy violations 

Products that violate Google’s Shopping ads policies are disapproved at the product level or, in egregious cases, result in account suspension without a warning period. Violations span prohibited content such as counterfeit goods and dangerous products, prohibited practices such as misrepresentation, and site-level issues, including landing pages that are broken or do not clearly present the product being sold. Unlike data quality issues, some policy violations require a formal review request after the underlying issue is resolved.

6. Incorrect formatting for material and pattern

The material [material] attribute accepts only one value per product. For products made of multiple materials, list the primary material followed by up to two secondary materials separated by a forward slash, for example, cotton/polyester/elastane. The pattern [pattern] attribute also accepts only a single value, and any subsequent entries will be ignored.

How a PIM solution keeps your Google Shopping feed compliant at scale

Managing the attribute requirements above manually becomes unsustainable once your catalog grows past a few hundred SKUs, which is where PIM for e-commerce centralizes attribute management, enforces completeness rules before data leaves your system, and removes the need for manual field mapping.

Inriver’s Syndicate Advance connects directly to Merchant Center via the Content API, so updated product data reaches Google without intermediate file exports or scheduled fetches. If keeping your feed accurate at scale is a growing challenge, see how Inriver handles it.