How to Add Products to Google Merchant Center

Merchant Center doesn’t scan your store and build a catalog on its own. You tell it about each product through a data source, and Google then checks that data against its rules and your landing pages.

This guide explains each data source type, the difference between primary and supplemental sources, how feed labels and countries work, what your product data needs before you upload, and the checks to run once products appear.

The ways products get into Merchant Center

Google’s data source documentation lists three types you create in Merchant Center. E-commerce platforms add a fourth route: an app or extension that creates and maintains the source for you.

Method	How it updates	Best for	Watch out for
File	Manual upload, scheduled fetch over SFTP, or Google Cloud Storage	Stores with a feed export from their platform or a feed tool	File name must match exactly; stale exports
Google Sheets	A spreadsheet built from Google’s template	Small catalogs maintained by hand	Manual errors and forgotten updates as the catalog grows
Merchant API	Your system sends changes programmatically	Large catalogs or frequent changes	Needs developer resources and ongoing maintenance
Platform app	The platform syncs products automatically	Shopify (Google & YouTube app), WooCommerce (Google for WooCommerce)	Manual edits in Merchant Center may be overwritten by the next sync

Which one to choose

• On Shopify or WooCommerce: start with the platform app. See connecting Shopify or connecting WooCommerce.
• Under a few dozen products that rarely change: Google Sheets is simple and visible.
• A custom platform or a feed tool: a scheduled file is reliable and easy to inspect.
• Prices or stock that change more than once a day: Google points to the Merchant API for frequent changes.

Primary and supplemental sources

Every account needs at least one primary source. Supplemental sources are optional helpers.

	Primary source	Supplemental source
Adds or removes products	Yes, it’s the only type that can	No
Stands alone	Yes	No, it only updates products from a primary source
Sets targeting	Language and country targeting, plus rules	Feed label must match the primary source
Matching	Not applicable	By product ID, which must match exactly
Typical use	Your main catalog	Adding labels, fixing attributes, adding missing values

Google recommends keeping all products in a single primary source and using the excluded_destination attribute when some products shouldn’t appear in a given program. It also says not to submit the same products in separate online and local primary sources.

The Supplemental sources tab only appears when the “Advanced data source management” add-on is enabled (Settings > Add-ons). The same add-on is needed for attribute rules. Google has also deprecated the legacy online inventory data sources; for quick price and availability updates it now points to a supplemental source with id, price and availability, linked with a “Take latest” rule. More detail is in supplemental feeds explained.

Countries, language and feed labels

When you create a primary source you choose target countries, language and a data source label. Two of those are permanent: Google says language and feed label can’t be modified after the source is created.

• Feed labels group products so a Shopping, Demand Gen or Performance Max campaign can advertise them; one feed label is used per campaign. Feed labels replace the older “country of sale” targeting.
• Custom feed labels are only available when you create a new source with the Advanced data source management add-on. They can be up to 20 characters: uppercase A to Z, digits, hyphens and underscores, with no spaces.
• Countries can be edited later in Data sources on the “Data source setup” tab, or set per product with the shipping attribute.
• Additional languages need a new product source with the right countries and language, plus translated product data and landing pages.

If you sell in more than one country, plan this before the first upload. Handling multiple countries and currencies covers the options.

Get your product data ready

Whatever the method, Google needs the same core attributes. These are the ones to confirm before uploading anything:

Attribute	Rule of thumb from Google’s docs
id	Required, 1 to 50 characters. Google recommends the SKU. Unique and stable; changing it overwrites the product and its history. Don’t rely on letter case to make IDs unique.
title	Required, 1 to 150 characters. Describes the product on the landing page; no promotional text, prices or company name.
description	Required, 1 to 5,000 characters. Describes only the product; no links or promotional text.
link	Required. A product landing page on your verified domain.
image_link	Required. JPEG or WebP recommended. Google has announced a 500 x 500 pixel minimum for all products from January 31, 2027.
price and availability	Required. Must match the landing page.
brand, gtin, mpn	Per Google’s unique product identifier rules. Never invent identifiers; use identifier_exists where none exist.
condition	Needed for used or refurbished products.
item_group_id	Needed for variants, with each variant as its own product.

Identifiers are where first uploads most often go wrong; GTIN, MPN and brand explained covers when each one applies.

Step by step: create a primary source

1. In Merchant Center, go to Settings > Data sources and open the Primary sources tab.
2. Choose Add product source.
3. Select the target countries and language. Remember the language can’t be changed later.
4. Enter a data source label and choose the marketing methods the products should be eligible for.
5. Pick the method: file, Google Sheets or Merchant API, and give the source a name.
6. For a file, enter the file name exactly as it will be uploaded, with a valid extension and no special characters.
7. Upload or fetch the first file, or fill in the sheet, then wait for processing to finish.

Your first upload: what to check

Processing finishing doesn’t mean products are approved. Google still reviews the data and crawls your landing pages. Work through these checks once products appear:

1. Check counts. Compare the number of products in Merchant Center with the number you meant to send. A big gap usually points to file errors or excluded items.
2. Open Products > Needs attention. Read the summary cards at the top, then turn off the “Prioritized fixes” toggle to see every issue, not only medium and high impact ones.
3. Check data source errors. If whole batches failed, start with data source errors.
4. Compare a sample by hand. Pick ten products across categories and compare title, price, availability and image with the live page. Include a sale item and a variant.
5. Review suggested values carefully. Google may suggest attribute values. Check them against the landing page before accepting, because accepted fixes override later changes from other methods, such as file uploads.
6. Check Automations. Automatic item updates are enabled by default and can update price, sale price, availability and condition from your pages. They’re meant for occasional mismatches, not as a substitute for accurate data.

For a full walk-through of the issue screens, see how to use Merchant Center diagnostics.

Keeping products current

Adding products is a one-time job. Keeping them accurate is the ongoing one. A few rules from Google’s documentation save a lot of trouble:

• Don’t delete products to hide them. Google says re-added items can take significant time to show again. Use pause for up to 14 days, or excluded_destination for longer.
• Don’t mark in-stock products out of stock to hide them. That can lead to disapproval.
• Remove discontinued products rather than leaving them as out of stock.
• Keep IDs stable. A new ID is a new product with no history.
• Update as often as your data changes. If prices change more than once a day, Google says automatic item updates may not keep up and the Merchant API is the better route.

Attribute rules can transform values on every upload (for example, appending a brand to titles or setting labels by product type). Rules require the Advanced data source management add-on, and you test them as a draft before applying. See attribute rules and mapping.

When to get help

If your catalog is large, spread across countries, or built from several systems, the structure of your data sources matters as much as the data. Our product feed optimization service can plan sources, labels and rules and clean up the data itself. For account-wide setup, see Google Merchant Center help.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help: Create a product data source
• Google Merchant Center Help: Feed labels
• Google Merchant Center Help: Show products in multiple target countries
• Google Merchant Center Help: Product data specification
• Google Merchant Center Help: ID [id]
• Google Merchant Center Help: Title [title] and structured title
• Google Merchant Center Help: Description [description]
• Google Merchant Center Help: Image link [image_link]
• Google Merchant Center Help: About unique product identifiers
• Google Merchant Center Help: Item group ID [item_group_id]
• Google Merchant Center Help: The Needs attention tab
• Google Merchant Center Help: Automatic item updates
• Google Merchant Center Help: Availability [availability]
• Google Merchant Center Help: Set up your attribute rules
• Google Merchant Center Help: Install and link the Google & YouTube app on Shopify
• WooCommerce Docs: Google for WooCommerce, get started

Last reviewed October 10, 2026 against the official documentation listed above. Google changes Merchant Center features and policies regularly — always confirm details in your own account.