How to Verify Your Shopify Store in Google Merchant Center Using a Text File

If you’ve ever tried to claim your Shopify domain in Google Merchant Center, you’ve probably run into a frustrating wall. Google gives you a few verification methods, and one of them — uploading a plain text file to your domain root — sounds simple in theory. In practice, Shopify makes it slightly tricky because it doesn’t give you direct access to your root directory.

This guide walks you through the exact process to get it done, without touching any code or hiring a developer.

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Why This Method?

Google Merchant Center offers several ways to verify domain ownership:

• Meta tag in the homepage HTML
• Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager
• Text file upload (what we’re covering here)
• DNS record

The text file method is often the most reliable for Shopify stores where you don’t want to touch theme code or when your GA4/GTM setup isn’t fully in place yet.

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The Problem With Shopify

Shopify doesn’t let you upload files directly to your domain root (e.g. yourstore.com/merchantcenter.txt). There’s no FTP, no file manager at the root level.

What Shopify does give you is:

1. A theme asset system (for theme-related files)
2. A Content → Files section (for general file uploads with a CDN URL)
3. A URL redirect system (to point one URL to another)

The solution is to combine the last two: upload the file via Content → Files to get a CDN URL, then create a redirect from /merchantcenter.txt to that CDN URL.

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Step 1 — Create the Text File

Open Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac) and create a plain text file with the content Google provides. It typically looks something like this:

[verification-string]
youremail@domain.com added to Merchant Center account ID [your-account-id]
Date: DD/MM/YYYY

Important for Mac users: TextEdit defaults to Rich Text Format (.rtf). Before saving, go to Format → Make Plain Text, then save as a .txt file. If you skip this step, the upload will fail or the file will contain hidden formatting characters.

Save the file as merchantcenter.txt.

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Step 2 — Upload via Shopify Content → Files

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Content → Files
2. Click Upload files in the top right
3. Select your merchantcenter.txt file
4. Once uploaded, it will appear in the list
5. Click the link icon on the right side of the file row to copy its CDN URL

The URL will look something like:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/XXXX/XXXX/XXXX/files/merchantcenter.txt?v=XXXXXXXXXX

Copy this URL — you’ll need it in the next step.

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Step 3 — Create a URL Redirect

This is the key step that makes the file accessible at your actual domain.

1. Go to Content → Menus in Shopify admin (URL Redirects are located here in newer Shopify versions)
2. Scroll down and click URL Redirects
3. Click Create URL redirect
4. Fill in:
   • Redirect from: /merchantcenter.txt
   • Redirect to: (paste the full CDN URL from Step 2)
5. Click Save redirect

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Step 4 — Test the Live URL

Open a new browser tab and go to:

https://yourstore.com/merchantcenter.txt

You should see the plain text content of your verification file displayed in the browser. If you see a 404, double-check the CDN URL in your redirect — the store ID in the URL needs to match exactly.

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Step 5 — Verify in Google Merchant Center

Once the file is live and accessible, go back to Google Merchant Center and trigger the verification check. Google will crawl the URL and confirm ownership, typically within a few minutes to a few hours.

If you were prompted to reply by email, include the live URL:

https://yourstore.com/merchantcenter.txt

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Common Issues

404 on the CDN URL

This usually means the store ID or file path in the CDN URL is wrong. Go back to Content → Files, copy the link icon URL again, and update your redirect.

File saved as .rtf instead of .txt (Mac)

TextEdit on Mac defaults to rich text. Always use Format → Make Plain Text before saving, or use a plain text editor like VS Code or BBEdit.

Redirect not working immediately

Shopify redirects can take a few minutes to propagate. Try clearing your browser cache or testing in an incognito window before assuming the redirect is broken.

Verification string has a typo

Copy the verification string directly from Google Merchant Center — don’t retype it manually. A single character difference will cause the verification to fail.

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Why Not Use the Theme Editor?

You can technically create the file in the Shopify theme editor under Assets, but the CDN URL format for theme assets is harder to find and varies depending on the theme version and ID. The Content → Files method gives you a clean, stable CDN URL immediately and is the more reliable approach.

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Summary

Step	Action
1	Create merchantcenter.txt as a plain text file
2	Upload via Shopify Content → Files
3	Copy the CDN URL from the file list
4	Create a URL redirect from /merchantcenter.txt to the CDN URL
5	Test at yourstore.com/merchantcenter.txt
6	Verify in Google Merchant Center

It’s a workaround for a limitation Shopify hasn’t fully solved, but once you know the steps it takes under 10 minutes from start to finish.

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