The Diagnostics tab in Merchant Center is where Shopping campaigns quietly break. Products get disapproved, errors accumulate, active item counts drop — and unless someone is monitoring it, campaigns keep running against a shrinking pool of eligible products.
These are the errors that appear most frequently, what causes each one, and how to fix them.
Missing or Invalid GTIN
What it means: Your product either has no GTIN (barcode number) in the feed, or the GTIN you submitted does not match a known barcode in Google’s product database.
Why it matters: For branded products, GTINs are effectively required. Missing GTINs on branded products generate a warning that limits how Google can qualify and display the product. Invalid GTINs — wrong check digits, non-existent barcodes — produce a harder error and can lead to disapprovals.
How to fix it: For products that genuinely have GTINs (retail products with barcodes), locate the number on the product packaging or from your supplier’s data sheet and add it to the feed. The format varies by region — EAN-13 in Europe, UPC-12 in North America, ISBN for books.
For products that legitimately do not have a GTIN — handmade items, custom products, bundles — set identifier_exists: false in your feed. This tells Google you have acknowledged the missing GTIN and is not a product you manufacture under a registered barcode. This removes the error without requiring you to fabricate a GTIN.
Do not add a GTIN you are not certain is correct. Wrong GTINs are worse than missing ones — they can map your product to a completely different item in Google’s catalog.
Price Mismatch
What it means: The price in your product feed does not match the price shown on your product landing page when Google crawls it.
Why it matters: This is a hard disapproval. Google crawls your landing pages to verify that the price you are advertising matches what the customer actually sees. If there is any discrepancy — including tax display differences, currency format differences, or sale prices that expired in the feed but are still live on the site — the product gets disapproved.
How to fix it: The root cause is almost always a sync timing issue. Your site updated the price before the feed did, or the feed updated before the site did.
Check whether your feed’s fetch schedule is aligned with when your site updates prices. If you run flash sales that start at midnight, a daily 2am feed fetch may miss the sale window. Increase fetch frequency or use the Content API for price-sensitive products.
For sale prices, use the sale_price and sale_price_effective_date attributes in the feed rather than changing the main price field. This allows Google to show the sale price within a defined window without creating a sync timing problem.
If the mismatch is due to tax — some markets require prices inclusive of tax, others exclusive — configure the tax settings in Merchant Center to match your site’s display format. The price in the feed should match what the customer sees before they add to cart.
Missing Required Image
What it means: Your product has no image URL in the feed, the image URL returns a 404, or the image does not meet Google’s format and quality requirements.
How to fix it: Verify the image URL is accessible without authentication. Open the image_link URL in a private browser window — if it redirects to a login page or returns an error, that is the problem.
Image requirements that frequently cause disapprovals:
- Minimum 100x100 pixels for non-apparel products, 250x250 for apparel
- No promotional text, watermarks, or borders overlaid on the image
- No placeholder images
- For most categories: product should be on a white or neutral background, not a lifestyle shot where the product is partially obscured
- Must be JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, or TIFF format
- Must load directly — no redirects, no authentication required
If your site uses responsive images or CDN URLs that include transformations, make sure the specific URL in the feed resolves to a valid image without requiring additional parameters.
Landing Page Not Working
What it means: Google crawled your product URL and found the page unavailable, redirecting incorrectly, or requiring a login.
Why this happens: Products can be removed from your site while remaining in the feed. URLs can change when a platform is updated. Geo-blocking or bot protection can prevent Googlebot from accessing the page.
How to fix it: Check the link field in your feed for affected products. Verify the URL loads correctly in a fresh browser window. Check whether your site has bot protection or rate limiting that might block Google’s crawler — Cloudflare, for example, can block crawlers if misconfigured.
If products have been discontinued, remove them from the feed rather than letting them sit with broken URLs. Keeping dead products in the feed actively harms your account’s quality signals.
Misrepresentation Policy Violation
What it means: Google’s policy team has determined that something about your product listings is misleading. This can be at the product level (a specific listing) or the account level (affecting all products).
Common causes:
- Price shown in ads is lower than what the customer pays at checkout (fees added during checkout)
- Promotions advertised that are not actually available
- Product description significantly misrepresents what the product is
- Shipping times advertised that do not reflect actual delivery times
How to fix it: Policy violations require a manual review request after the underlying issue is corrected. Identify specifically what Google flagged (the violation detail is in Diagnostics), fix the root cause on your site or in your feed, then submit a reinstatement request through Merchant Center.
Misrepresentation at the account level is more serious — it means Google has found a systemic pattern across your listings, not just one product. Account-level suspensions require demonstrating that the issue has been fully resolved across all products before reinstatement is granted.
Invalid Value in Required Attribute
What it means: A required field in your feed contains a value that does not match the allowed values for that attribute.
Common examples:
availabilityset to “In Stock” with a capital I (should bein_stocklowercase, underscore)conditionset to “New” (should benewlowercase)genderset to “Men” (should bemale)- Price formatted with currency symbol included in the value field
How to fix it: Review Google’s feed specification for the exact allowed values for each attribute. These are case-sensitive and format-specific. A text field that says “In Stock” instead of “in_stock” will fail validation even though the meaning is the same.
If your platform is generating the feed automatically, check the plugin or app settings for how each attribute maps to Google’s required format.
Age Group Missing for Apparel
What it means: For clothing products, age_group is a required attribute. Missing it causes a disapproval for apparel products.
How to fix it: Add age_group to all clothing products in your feed. Valid values: newborn, infant, toddler, kids, adult. If your product is for adults, set adult. This is probably the most frequently missed required attribute for apparel sellers.
How to Prioritize Fixes
Not all errors have equal impact. When looking at your Diagnostics tab, prioritize in this order:
- Account-level issues — affect all products and block everything
- High-volume disapprovals — the errors affecting the most products
- Price mismatch and misrepresentation — these can escalate to account suspension if left unaddressed
- Missing attributes on top-selling products — fix your best performers first before cleaning up the long tail
Check Diagnostics at least once a week. Feed errors accumulate silently and product counts drop gradually — by the time a campaign manager notices underperformance, hundreds of products may have been offline for weeks.
Related Posts
How to Use Merchant Center Diagnostics to Audit Your Product Feed
Product Feed 101: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters
How to Set Up Google Merchant Center Promotions for a Limited-Time Sale
Need Help With Your Google Ads?
I help e-commerce brands scale profitably with data-driven PPC strategies.
Get In Touch