You’ve uploaded your feed, the products are in Google Merchant Center, and nothing appears when you search for them on Google. This guide is for Shopify and WooCommerce store owners and marketers who are in exactly that spot. By the end you’ll know how to find the real reason your products are not showing on Google Shopping and fix it in the right order, without changing settings at random.

Prerequisites: admin access to your Merchant Center account, and access to your Shopify or WooCommerce admin so you can fix the source data. If you run ads, you’ll also want access to Google Ads.

One note on naming. Google’s own help pages and the Merchant Center interface don’t always use the same labels (you’ll see “Pending” in some places and “Under review” in others). Use whatever your screen shows. The meaning is the same.

Step 1: Decide whether the problem is account-level or product-level

Don’t open a single product yet. Start with the Needs attention tab in Merchant Center. It lists issues that Google wants you to act on, and it separates problems that affect the whole account from problems that affect individual products^[2].

• Account-level issues affect all of your products. They come as warnings (your products keep showing during a warning period) or suspensions (your products stop appearing across Google)^[2]. If your account is suspended, none of your products will show, however clean your feed is.
• Product-level issues only affect individual items. Warnings let a product keep showing with limited performance, while disapprovals stop it showing until you fix the problem^[2]. Other products in the same feed can be fine.

A quick way to tell them apart: if every product is affected and you see a banner at the top of the account with a “Review and fix” or “Fix” button, treat it as an account problem. You can also open Needs attention and select “View setup and policy issues”^[2]. If some products are approved and others aren’t, you’re dealing with product-level issues.

Step 2: Read the Status and Visibility columns

Go to Products > All products. The table has two columns that matter here, and they mean different things^[1].

The Visibility column is the one you control. A green dot means the product is showing on Google. Otherwise the product is either hidden by you, or it can’t be shown because it has one or more errors^[1].

The Status column is Google’s decision. Here’s what each status means in practice^[1]:

• Processing: Google is processing an update, usually because you edited product information. This may take up to 15 minutes.
• Under review: Google is still reviewing the product. You can’t speed this up. Move to Step 3.
• Approved: the review is complete and the product can show on Google. For Shopping ads it still needs a campaign, so move to Step 7 if you can’t find it.
• Limited: the product shows only in some cases, for example in some countries but not others, or for free listings but not ads. Check the Needs attention tab to see what’s limiting it.
• Not approved: the product can’t be shown on Google until you fix the issue. The usual causes are policy disapprovals and data quality disapprovals. Move to Steps 4 to 6.

Step 3: Check whether you’re simply still under review

If your account or products are new, or you’ve just made big changes, the answer may be patience. According to Google, a review may take up to 3 to 5 business days for Shopping ads and a few weeks for other features such as free listings^[1]. Account suspension reviews can take up to 7 days^[2].

What to do while you wait:

1. Don’t resubmit the feed over and over. It doesn’t speed the review up.
2. Check that nothing under Needs attention is waiting on you. Before Google can finish an initial review, it needs things like shipping settings, a claimed and verified website and a verified business address^[2].
3. Use the time to run through Steps 4 to 6 on your own site, so you’re not caught out when the review completes.

Step 4: Fix data disapprovals

Click a Not approved product and read the issue name exactly as shown. Then fix it at the source, in your Shopify or WooCommerce product data, not in a one-off feed patch that gets overwritten on the next sync. These are the ones that come up most often.

GTIN and identifier errors

A GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is the barcode number printed on a product, such as a UPC or EAN. If you sell branded products, the “gtin” attribute should hold the real number from the manufacturer or your supplier^[5]. Typos, wrong lengths and made-up numbers all cause errors. If a product genuinely has no GTIN, such as a handmade item, set “identifier_exists” to “no” rather than inventing a number^[5]. Check the “brand” and “mpn” attributes too.

Image problems

Google flags several image issues. These are the common ones:

• Generic or placeholder images: a grey “image coming soon” graphic or a logo instead of the product. Replace it with a real photo.
• Promotional overlays: text such as “SALE”, “Free delivery” or a price badge on the image. Use a clean product photo and keep promotions in your promotions settings.
• Images too small: Google has announced that all product images must be at least 500 x 500 pixels from 31 January 2027^[5]. Upload images at least that size now, so you don’t have to redo them later.

Missing apparel attributes

Clothing and shoes need more than a title and price. In the UK, the US and several other countries, apparel products need “color”, “size”, “gender” and “age_group”, and any product with variants needs “item_group_id”^[5]. In Shopify and WooCommerce these usually come from variant options or a feed app’s field mapping, so check the mapping, not just the product page.

Step 5: Fix price and availability mismatches

The notice may say something like “Mismatched value (page crawl) [availability]” or a price equivalent. In plain terms, your feed says one thing and Google’s crawler found something different on the landing page. Google can disapprove these items preemptively, and a review is required to resolve them^[2].

Diagnose it first:

1. Open the product URL in a private window, so you see what a new shopper sees.
2. Compare the price on the page with the “price” attribute in your feed. Check currency, tax and any sale price too.
3. Compare stock status on the page with the “availability” attribute.
4. Check the variant. Feeds often carry the price of one variant while the page loads a different default.

The fix is usually about timing. Google names the lag between website updates and product data updates as a common cause^[4]. If your feed syncs once a day, a product that sells out at 10am still says “in stock” until the next sync, and the mismatch keeps coming back. Sync more often, and consider turning on automatic item updates in Merchant Center, which Google recommends for this problem^[4]. Too many products with incorrect availability can lead to an account suspension, so don’t leave it^[4].

Step 6: Check your website for problems Google flags

Sometimes the feed is perfect and the website is the issue. Google lists these common website problems^[2]:

• robots.txt blocking Googlebot: open yourstore.com/robots.txt and check that it doesn’t block your product pages or Googlebot. On Shopify you edit this through the robots.txt.liquid template. On WooCommerce, check your SEO plugin and the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” setting under Settings > Reading.
• Unavailable landing pages: a 404 or a page that times out. Click the “link” URLs from your feed to test them.
• Redirects to a generic page: if a product URL redirects to the homepage or a category, redirect it to the matching product or update the feed URL.
• Placeholder content and broken links: “Lorem ipsum” text, empty descriptions or dummy prices on live pages.
• Missing or inconsistent information: contact details, prices or descriptions that don’t match across your site and feed.

Step 7: Work out why approved products still aren’t showing

Approved means eligible, not guaranteed. If your products are approved and you still can’t find them, go through this list in order.

1. Free listings are switched off. Free listings let your products appear on Google at no cost, and they’re turned on by default^[6]. To check, go to Marketing > Marketing methods in Merchant Center and open the Free listings card. Changing it needs admin access^[6]. Free listings can also take a few weeks to start showing after review^[1].
2. No linked Google Ads account. You need to link Google Ads and Merchant Center before you can create Shopping campaigns^[7].
3. No active campaign. Linking isn’t enough. Shopping ads run through a Shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign that uses your Merchant Center products^[8]. Check the campaign is enabled, not paused, and targets the countries you sell to.
4. Budget or targeting limits. A tiny daily budget, restrictive location settings or low bids can all keep ads from showing. Check the campaign status in Google Ads for messages like “Limited by budget”.
5. You’re testing the wrong way. Results vary by location and device, and searching for your own product over and over without clicking can stop Google showing your ad to you. Use the Ads Preview and Diagnosis tool, and look at impressions in reporting rather than relying on your own searches.

Step 8: Request a review the right way

After you’ve fixed an issue, ask Google to recheck it. For product issues, open the Needs attention tab, find the product in the “All products that need attention” table and select “Fix”. For account issues, go to Needs attention and select “View setup and policy issues”^[3]. You’ll choose between two options, and the choice matters:

• “I fixed the issue”: choose this when you’ve changed your data or website. Only select it once the fix is live.
• “I disagree with the issue”: choose this only when you believe Google has made a mistake and your products already comply. You may only get one chance to disagree^[3].

There are limits. If your issues aren’t resolved by the second review attempt, a one-week cool down may begin. During it the review button is greyed out and Google support can’t shorten it^[3]. So fix, check the live page, then request once. For account-level suspensions, Google may also ask you to verify your identity before you can request a review^[3].

If your suspension is for misrepresentation, follow the steps in the misrepresentation guide linked in Step 1 before you request a review.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Fixing the feed while the website still disagrees with it.
• Changing many attributes at once, so you can’t tell what worked.
• Inventing GTINs to clear an error.
• Requesting reviews before the fix is live.
• Waiting on a review that’s actually blocked by an account-level notice.
• Assuming approved products need no campaign or free listings setup.

FAQs

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help: Check product visibility and status support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Issues in Merchant Center support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Request a review of your issues support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: How to fix mismatched product availability support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Product data specification support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Free listings for products support.google.com
• Google Ads Help: Link a Google Ads account to Merchant Center support.google.com
• Google Ads Help: Requirements for Shopping ads support.google.com