Google Merchant Center: What It Is and How to Set It Up (2027)

By Corey Frankosky · Last Updated October 27, 2026

Google Merchant Center is the free Google tool where you upload and manage your product data so your products can show on Google Search, the Shopping tab, Google Images, Maps and YouTube. If you sell physical products online and want to run Shopping ads or Performance Max with a product feed, you need a Merchant Center account first. Everything starts here.

This guide covers what Merchant Center is, who needs it, how to set up your Google Merchant Center account with the current menu names, how to link it to Google Ads, how to fix disapprovals and suspensions, and how to reach support. If you would rather have someone run your Shopping and Performance Max campaigns for you, see our ecommerce Google Ads management page.

1What Is Google Merchant Center?

Google calls Merchant Center a free tool that helps shoppers on Google discover, explore and buy your products. You give Google your product data, things like the title, price, image, availability and link, and Google uses it to show your products in shopping results.

The account is free. Keep in mind that Merchant Center is not an ad platform. Your budgets, bids and campaigns live in Google Ads, and Merchant Center is the catalog they pull from.

You may still see the name "Merchant Center Next." That was the redesigned version Google rolled out over the last few years, and it is now just Merchant Center. Google still moves menus around, so if a label here looks slightly different in your account, search for the page by name.

Question to Answer:

Do you already have a Merchant Center account tied to your business email, or will you be creating one from scratch?

2What Merchant Center Powers Across Google

Once your products are approved, they become eligible for what Google used to call "Surfaces across Google." Today the paid and unpaid placements together make up what many people call the Google Shopping network. Google says products can show on Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, the Google Shopping tab and Google Images.

• Free listings: Unpaid product listings on the Shopping tab, Search, Images, Lens, YouTube and Maps. Google says free listings are usually on by default.
• Shopping ads: Paid product ads with an image, title, price and store name. These run from a Shopping campaign in Google Ads.
• Performance Max: Google's goal-based campaign that can use your Merchant Center feed to show products across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps.

A weak title or a missing GTIN hurts you in all of these at once. My guide on Google Shopping feed attributes covers every field in detail.

Question to Answer:

Which of these placements do you want to use: free listings only, Shopping ads, Performance Max, or all three?

3Who Needs a Google Merchant Center Account

You need a Google Merchant Center account if you sell physical or downloadable products at a fixed price and want them on Google. That covers Shopify, WooCommerce and custom ecommerce stores, retailers who want to show local inventory, and anyone running Shopping ads, since you cannot create a Shopping campaign without a linked Merchant Center account.

Google's online store requirements rule some businesses out. Your site cannot be a marketplace where other businesses sell, customers need to buy directly on your website, prices must be displayed and fixed, you need at least one conventional payment method in a secure checkout, and you have to disclose purchase conditions like your return and refund policy.

If you sell services, like plumbing or legal work, Merchant Center is not for you. Search campaigns and Local Services Ads are a better fit.

Question to Answer:

Does your website let customers buy directly with a secure checkout, and is your return policy easy to find?

4How to Set Up Google Merchant Center Step by Step

Here is the process. Before you start, know that a single Google Account email can create only one Merchant Center account, and the country you choose at setup cannot be changed later.

1. Sign up. Go to merchants.google.com and sign in with the Google Account you want to own the account. Use a business email you will keep.
2. Enter your business information. Add your store name, business address, where you sell (online, in store or both) and your checkout options.
3. Verify and claim your website. Enter your store URL on the Business info page. Google says Merchant Center verifies your site through Search Console, often automatically. If not, you will see a notice to verify and claim manually. Claiming gives your account the exclusive right to use that website for product data.
4. Add your business details and phone number. Go to Settings, then Business info, open the Details tab and use Edit business details. Google asks you to verify your phone number and business address here, and some accounts also go through identity verification.
5. Set up shipping. Open Products & store, then Shipping and returns, and add your shipping services, costs and delivery times. These need to match what your checkout charges.
6. Set up your return policy. On the same Shipping and returns page, open the Return policies tab and select Add return policy. Google says this policy should match what your website states, including the return window, return method and any fees.
7. Handle tax if it applies. In the US, industry coverage reported that Google stopped requiring tax settings as of July 2025. Outside the US, check the tax article for your country.

If you use Shopify, the Google & YouTube app can create the account, claim your domain and import shipping for you. I walk through that in my guide to connecting Shopify to Google Merchant Center.

Question to Answer:

Do your shipping costs and return policy in Merchant Center match exactly what your website shows at checkout?

5How to Add Products to Merchant Center

Every set of products you add creates a data source, which Google used to call a feed. You manage these under Settings, then Data sources. Google lists several ways to add products:

• Automatically from your website: Google crawls your store. Fast to start, but you get the least control.
• An ecommerce platform: Shopify, WooCommerce and others sync products for you. On Shopify, this is the Google & YouTube app.
• A product file: Google accepts .txt, .xml or .tsv files up to 4 GB, uploaded once or fetched from a URL on a schedule.
• Google Sheets, the API or manual entry: Sheets works for small catalogs, the Merchant API is for developers and feed tools, and one by one works fine for a handful of items.

Whatever method you use, every product needs the required attributes. Google's product data specification requires id, title, description, link, image_link, availability and price for all products. Brand, GTIN, MPN, condition and apparel attributes are required depending on the product and country.

You can also add a supplemental data source to fix or add fields without touching your main feed. Go to Settings, Data sources, open the Supplemental sources tab and choose Add supplemental product data. Google supports a file, a Google Sheets template or the API for this, per its data source guide.

Images matter here too. If you have not seen it yet, read my news post on the Merchant Center 500x500 image requirement.

Question to Answer:

Which method will you use to add products, and does every product have the seven required attributes filled in?

6How to Link Merchant Center to Google Ads

You need to link Merchant Center to Google Ads before you can run Shopping ads or a Performance Max campaign with a feed. Google says to make sure neither account has account-level policy violations and that you have admin access in both.

From Merchant Center:

1. Open the linking page. Go to Settings, then Access and services, then the Apps and services tab.
2. Add the service. Select Add service. Under "Select Google service," choose Google Ads and select Next.
3. Pick the account. Choose your Google Ads account and select Next.
4. Confirm the link. Select Link. This also connects the Google Ads account to your Business Manager. If you only want the Merchant Center link, choose Link to Merchant Center only.

From Google Ads: Go to Tools, then Data manager. On the Connected products tab, find Google Merchant Center and follow the prompts. If you send the request from Google Ads, accept it in Merchant Center under Apps and services.

If someone else manages the Google Ads account, enter its customer ID in Merchant Center and select Send request for their admin to approve.

Once linked, structure matters. My guide on Shopping campaign structure for retailers shows how to split products by margin and performance, and the Google Shopping ads guide covers the full campaign setup.

Question to Answer:

Who owns your Google Ads account, and do you have admin access to both accounts so you can approve the link?

7Needs Attention and Diagnostics

Merchant Center groups product and account issues on the Needs attention tab, which older guides call Diagnostics. To open it, go to Products and select Needs attention at the top. Google's Needs attention help article says it shows:

• High impact issues: Summary cards for the problems that affect the most products, including account-level issues.
• Prioritized fixes: A toggle that filters to issues with medium or high impact. Turn it off to see everything.
• Click potential: Whether a product is likely to get high, medium or low clicks compared with your other products. Fix high click potential products first.
• Issue details: Click an issue card to see suggested actions, business impact and sample products.

The All products tab also shows a history graph of approved, limited, not approved and under review products. Check it weekly. A sudden jump in "not approved" usually means a feed or website change broke something.

Once your products are live, the next step is finding the ones that are not earning. My post on spotting underperforming products in Shopping ads walks through that.

Question to Answer:

When did you last open the Needs attention tab, and how many of your high click potential products have an open issue?

8Common Disapprovals and Suspensions

A disapproval affects one product. A suspension affects your whole account, and every product stops showing. The suspension most stores run into is misrepresentation.

Google's misrepresentation policy requires your listings and website to be clear, honest and complete. In practice, accounts get flagged for:

• Missing or thin contact information: Google says to show at least one reachable contact method, such as a business address, phone number, email, contact form or social business profile, and to keep your business name, address and phone number identical on your footer, contact page and Merchant Center.
• Missing return and refund policy: Your purchase conditions need to be disclosed on the site, and the policy needs to match what you actually do.
• Checkout and pricing problems: Hidden fees, taxes or recurring charges that only appear late in checkout, or restocking fees that are not disclosed upfront.
• Unavailable offers or mismatches: Listing products you cannot fulfill, or a feed price that does not match the landing page.

Google treats egregious violations differently. For those, Google may suspend the account without warning. For other violations, you get a warning at least 7 days before any suspension, and Google says you typically get 7 or 28 days to fix the issue. Account reviews typically take 7 business days.

To fix a suspension, fix the website first, not the feed. Add a real contact page, a clear return policy and shipping details, check your checkout for surprise fees, then request a review from the Needs attention area. Do not request a review before the fixes are live.

Question to Answer:

Could a first-time shopper find your phone number or email, your return policy and your shipping costs in under 30 seconds on your site?

9How to Contact Google Merchant Center Support

Google does not list a general Google Merchant Center phone number in its Help Center. Support goes through the Help Center contact flow, and the contact options you get depend on your account.

1. Open the Help Center. Go to the Merchant Center Help Center while signed in to the Google Account that has access to your Merchant Center account.
2. Select Contact us. Under "Need more help?", choose Contact us. You can also post to the help community from the same spot.
3. Describe the issue. Pick the affected account and describe the problem in a short sentence. Google's contact form notes that requests with all the relevant information are resolved faster.
4. Choose your contact method. Pick from the options offered, which can include chat or email.

Keep in mind, Shopify support can help with the app but cannot fix a Merchant Center suspension. Know which side the problem is on before you reach out.

Question to Answer:

Do you have your Merchant Center account ID and a screenshot of the exact issue ready before you contact support?

10Free Listings vs Shopping Ads

Both use the same product data from Merchant Center. The difference is placement, cost and control.

To check your free listings status, go to Marketing, then Marketing methods, and look at the Free listings card. Google says free listings can appear alongside your paid campaigns, so you do not need to choose one or the other.

Free listings are a bonus, not a growth plan. Shopping ads are where you get volume. To judge whether the ads are paying off, track return on ad spend. My guide to what ROAS is explains the metric, and the ROAS calculator runs the math for you.

Question to Answer:

Are free listings turned on in your account, and do you know how many clicks they sent last month?

11Merchant Center and Performance Max

When you link Merchant Center to Google Ads, Performance Max can use your product feed. Google's help center covers creating a Performance Max campaign with a Merchant Center feed, and retailers can use it to promote online and local inventory.

Your feed does a lot of the heavy lifting in PMax. Product titles, images and categories decide which searches your products match, and listing groups decide which products each asset group can show. Custom labels in your feed, such as margin or best seller, let you split products into separate asset groups or campaigns.

The key with Performance Max is to fix your Merchant Center data first. A clean feed with no open issues gives the campaign the best shot at spending on the right products. My Performance Max guide covers the full setup, and if you are planning ahead for Q4, see my post on planning holiday Shopping ads campaigns.

Question to Answer:

Do you have custom labels in your feed that would let you separate high margin products from low margin products in Performance Max?

12Frequently Asked Questions

Google Ads Certification Exam Questions About Merchant Center

These questions show up in the Google Ads Shopping certification exam on Skillshop. Here are the answers, checked against Google's Merchant Center Help Center, with a short explanation of why.

Studying for the exam? The Google Ads Course walks you through every campaign type step by step, and you can see every exam topic in our Google Ads certification guide.

Sources

• Google, Google Merchant Center product page. Accessed October 27, 2026.
• Google Merchant Center Help: Sign up for Merchant Center, Online store requirements, Website verification, Missing contact information, Set up your return policies. Accessed October 27, 2026.
• Google Merchant Center Help: Data sources, Create a product file, Create a product data source, Product data specification, Identifier exists, Set up your target country of sale. Accessed October 27, 2026.
• Google Merchant Center Help: Link a Google Ads account to Merchant Center, The Needs attention tab, Products overview, Misrepresentation policy, Free listings. Accessed October 27, 2026.
• Google Ads Help: Create a Performance Max campaign with a Merchant Center feed. Accessed October 27, 2026.
• PPC News Feed, Tax settings no longer needed in U.S. product feeds. July 2025.