Skip to content
Selling Fee Tools
Menu

Google Merchant Center Feed Validator

Validate a CSV, TSV or XML product feed against Google Merchant Center attribute rules.

1. Product feed

No feed handy? Try or .

Checked in a background thread in your browser, so large feeds work too. There’s no product limit and nothing is uploaded.

2. Result

Drop a feed to check it against Google’s product data specification.

Runs in your browserNo uploadLast verified Source: Google Merchant Center Help

How it works

Drop the feed file you upload to Merchant Center, or paste it. The tool recognises tab-delimited text and XML in RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0, reads every product, and checks each one against Google’s product data specification. The work happens in a background thread in your browser, so feeds with tens of thousands of products work and nothing is uploaded.

The file. XML feeds must declare Google’s namespace, xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0"; without it Google ignores every g: attribute. Text feeds should be tab-delimited, with English attribute names in lowercase and underscores.

Required attributes. Every product needs id (unique, up to 50 characters), title (up to 150), description (up to 5,000), link, image_link, availability and price. Links must start with http or https, images must be JPEG, WebP, PNG, GIF, BMP or TIFF, availability must be in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder or backorder, and preorders need an availability_date.

Prices. Price and sale_price must be a number with an ISO 4217 currency code, like 15.00 USD. A price of 0 is flagged, as is a sale price that isn’t lower than the price or uses another currency.

Identifiers. Each GTIN is checked with the GS1 check-digit algorithm and against the prefixes Google rejects. Products need a GTIN, or an MPN with brand, unless identifier_exists is no. Placeholder brands like “Generic” or “N/A” are flagged.

Other values. Condition, gender, age group and adult must use Google’s supported values; colours can’t be numbers or hex codes; shipping and shipping_weight must follow the documented format and ranges; titles in all capitals or with promotional text are warned about.

Example

Google’s own RSS 2.0 example in its Merchant Center Help passes every check except one: its sample GTIN 123456789123 fails the GS1 check digit.

WhereidAttributeSeverityMessage
Item 1TV_123456gtinErrorgtin 123456789123 has the wrong check digit (3, should be 8). Google rejects invalid GTINs.

Google’s tab-delimited example from the same Help Center has two errors, because it leaves out two required attributes:

WhereidAttributeSeverityMessage
Row 2GooglePixel6a-USimage_linkErrorMissing image_link. It is required for every product.
Row 2GooglePixel6a-USavailabilityErrorMissing availability. It is required for every product.

It also gets warnings for a price without a currency code (449.00 instead of 449.00 USD) and for having no GTIN, MPN or brand.

FAQ

Which feed formats does it read?

Tab-delimited text (.txt or .tsv), XML in RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0, and comma-separated files. Merchant Center itself accepts .txt, .tsv and .xml, so a comma-separated file is flagged with a note to save it as tab-separated. Headers like “Image Link” are read as image_link, and the tool tells you to rename them.

Is my feed uploaded anywhere?

No. The file is read and checked in a background thread of your browser tab, so large feeds don’t freeze the page and nothing is sent to us or to Google. There is no product limit; the only limit is your computer’s memory. Closing the tab discards the feed.

Why is my GTIN flagged as invalid?

Google only accepts GTINs whose last digit matches the GS1 check-digit calculation, and it rejects restricted prefixes 02, 04 and 2 and coupon prefixes 98 and 99. A wrong check digit usually means a typo or a number copied from the wrong field. If you can’t confirm a GTIN, Google advises leaving it out.

Does a clean result mean my products will be approved?

It means the feed follows the format rules in Google’s product data specification. Merchant Center also checks things a file can’t show, such as whether your landing page price matches the feed, whether images load and meet size rules, and policy compliance. Use the Diagnostics page in Merchant Center after uploading.

What does “No gtin, mpn or brand” mean?

Google identifies most new products by a GTIN, or by a manufacturer part number together with the brand. If your product has none of these, for example handmade or custom items, set identifier_exists to no. If it does have them, add them; products submitted without identifiers they really have may get limited visibility.

Can I check a feed from Shopify or WooCommerce?

Yes, if you can download the feed file your app or plugin generates, usually as an XML or TSV link. Open the link in your browser, save the file and drop it here. For a Shopify product CSV rather than a Google feed, use the Shopify CSV Validator instead.