Google Merchant Center

1. Google Merchant Center

   Send your products, promotions, reviews and store stock to Google through feed addresses that Google fetches on a schedule. This tour walks through every section, switching tabs as it goes.

2. AI setup, regenerate and save

   Set up with AI (if your plan includes it) analyses your catalogue and suggests settings for you to review; it uses AI credits. Regenerate now rebuilds the feed files. Save stores your changes and regenerates the feeds; until then an unsaved-changes bar reminds you.

3. How feeds reach Google

   Google shut down the Content API for Shopping, so products are no longer pushed. You paste each feed address into Merchant Center once and Google fetches it on a schedule.

4. Merchant API (optional)

   Feeds work without it. Turn it on and paste a service account JSON key to test the connection, ask Google to fetch right after saving, and see product status, issues and 30-day clicks here. The key is stored encrypted.

5. Settings tabs

   Data sources, Product rules, Preview, Promotions, Product ratings, Local inventory and Customer Reviews. The next steps open each tab for you.

6. Feed addresses

   One address per feed (a products file per language, plus promotions, reviews and local inventory) with when it was generated and last fetched. Copy an address into Merchant Center as a data source. Create new addresses stops the old ones immediately.

7. Old feed address

   Keeps an older address working for Merchant Center accounts that already use it; it serves the product feed in the first feed language. Turn it off once you have switched to the new addresses.

8. General

   Your Merchant Center ID (required for Customer Reviews and the API), the target country (empty uses the store country) and how often the feeds are regenerated.

9. What to send

   Pick the feed languages (only languages with translated products can be ticked), one item per variant or per product, a price range, which categories to include or exclude, brands to exclude, and whether to skip products without an image.

10. Stock

    Choose whether out-of-stock products are sent or left out, and how products that can be sold without stock are reported. Digital and untracked products are always sent as in stock.

11. Content

    Build titles from a template with placeholders, choose the description source, a brand for products without one, a default Google product category, and the condition, age group and gender sent to Google.

12. Google categories

    Shows how many of your categories have a Google product category. Map missing categories with AI suggests matches for you to check and save; it uses AI credits.

13. Price and shipping

    Send prices including VAT (EU, UK, TR) or excluding VAT (US, Canada), set the shipping countries, and optionally send free shipping for digital products so Google does not report missing shipping.

14. Custom labels

    Fill custom labels with values such as top category, brand, price band, sale, bestseller or stock status, to split products into separate Google Ads campaigns.

15. Preview

    Run a preview to see exactly what Google will receive with the current settings, including unsaved changes: which products are sent or skipped and why, plus warnings. Exclude single products from the feed here.

16. Promotions

    Send the coupons and automatic promotions you tick to Google and choose where they show. Coupon codes become public on Google, so do not tick private codes. Sign up for Promotions in Merchant Center first.

17. Product ratings

    Send your approved product reviews to Google. Stars appear only once the store reaches Google's minimum number of reviews, and joining Product ratings in Merchant Center takes a few weeks.

18. Local inventory

    For shops with a physical store: send store stock for free local listings. Give each store warehouse the store code from your Google Business Profile; warehouses without a code are not sent.