Disclosure date [disclosure_date]

Use the disclosure date [disclosure_date] attribute to tell Google when a product should become visible in search results across Google’s YouTube surfaces only.

In this page

• When to use
• Format
• Guidelines
• Limitations

When to use

Optional for each product.

Recommended for launching a new product on YouTube.

If there is no disclosure date specified, the product may begin serving on Google and YouTube surfaces immediately.

Format

Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure Google understands the data you're submitting.

Note: Use the same timezone as the one set in Merchant Center to avoid products becoming visible at an incorrect time. If the timezone isn't specified, UTC timezone will be used.

For details on when and how to submit values in English, learn more about submitting your product data.

To format your data for Content API, see the Content API for Shopping.

Guidelines

Follow these guidelines to make sure you submit high-quality data for your products.

Minimum requirements

These are the requirements you'll need to meet to show your product on Google. If you don't follow these requirements, we'll disapprove your product and let you know in the Diagnostics page in your Merchant Center account.

• Ensure the following attributes are added to your product data feed: item id [id], title [title], description [description], link [link], image link [image_link], price [price], availability [availability], and quantity [quantity].
• Make sure you submit a landing page [link] and image link [image_link] for the product when uploading it to Merchant Center, even if it’s not linked anywhere on your website.
• The product landing page must use the same domain as your website and can be unsearchable, but it must be accessible for Google to review the product data. For example, your website can’t be password protected.
• If the product is set for preorder or is backordered, use availability date [availability_date]. Make sure that the disclosure date is before the availability date. However, it’s not required to set an availability date to use a disclosure date.

Best practices

These best practices can help you go beyond the basic requirements to optimize your product data for performance.

• If you’re using the disclosure date to launch a new product on a YouTube live stream, review tips for live shopping on YouTube.
• Make sure you update the product data including the disclosure date [disclosure date] at least one week before the launch date submitted to Google. This ensures that Google doesn’t publish your product information before the specified date.

• Verify the date and time format along with your timezone (considering daylight savings) in Merchant Center to avoid issues with product visibility.
• Make sure the landing page URL is available for customers, by making it listed and searchable, before the disclosure date. If not, customers will see an error message.
• After the disclosure date has passed, remove the attribute within 24 hours to avoid any serving issues.

Limitations

Unavailable for Shopping ads & free listings

An offer with a disclosure date [disclosure_date] attribute can’t be selected for Shopping ads nor free listings. If you would like to run a Shopping campaign or have your product appear across Google free listings surfaces, remove the disclosure date [disclosure_date] attribute immediately after the disclosure date has passed. It may take up to 40 hours after the removal for the Shopping campaign to start again or for the product to appear on Google’s free listings surfaces.

Troubleshooting: If you have Shopping ads running alongside an offer with disclosure date, you may see the warning “Too many values [disclosure_date]” in the “Diagnostics” page. Ignore the warning as it means that the product is correctly set up and not being used for Shopping ads.

Shopify merchants

In addition to the above guidelines, follow the ones listed below.

• Use the Shopify app on desktop only
• The disclosure date [disclosure_date] attribute doesn’t exist in the Shopify app. In order to schedule the launch date and time for your product:
  1. Go to the product drop page under the “Sales channels and apps” box.
  2. Select Schedule availability for the online store and add the date and time (+timezone).
  3. Select Schedule availability for Google and add the same date and time (+timezone).
• Shopify automatically removes the disclosure date attribute in Merchant Center at the time of the disclosure date so there is no need to manually remove it.