When you add products to Merchant Center, Google reviews the products for any issues. After receiving approval, you can control whether or not they show on places across Google. In this article, you’ll learn about product visibility and status in Merchant Center.
On this page
- How visibility and status work
- Update your product data
- Product count discrepancy in Merchant Center
- Change the visibility of your products
- Next steps
How visibility and status work
The “Visibility” column lets you know if your product is being shown on Google (indicated by a green dot icon ). You control the visibility of your products.
The “Status” column lets you know if your product is approved to show on Google. There are 5 statuses: “Under review”, “Processing”, “Approved”, “Limited”, and “Not approved”. Google controls the approval status for products added to Merchant Center.
Visibility
| The product is showing on Google. | |
| The product is hidden and not showing on Google. | |
| The product can't be shown because it has one or more errors. |
Status
Under review
Google is reviewing the product for any issues. Reviews may take up to 3-5 days for ads and a few weeks for other features (such as free listings). Common reviews include:
- Initial review: You’re new to Merchant Center or you upload product data to your account for the first time. Our specialists review the provided information to ensure it aligns with product data specifications.
- Pending image crawl: You don’t need to do anything right now. Your image will automatically appear after we’ve fetched it. We’ll let you know if we encounter any problems.
Processing
Google is processing updates to the product, which may take up to 15 minutes. This usually happens when you edit the product’s information.
Approved
Google has completed reviewing the product, and the product is now showing on Google.
Limited
The product is showing on Google, but only in some instances. This may mean that the product is eligible to show in some countries (but not others), or may not be showing in some places on Google. You can check for any issues with the product in the “Needs attention“ tab.
Not approved
The product can’t be shown on Google. There may be one or more errors that are preventing it from showing on Google. You can fix the error by selecting “Fix errors” or by going to the “Needs attention” tab in Merchant Center. Common reasons why your products may not be approved include:
- Policy disapprovals: Your website or specific products that you’ve submitted don't comply with our policies. Visit the Shopping ads policy center for additional information.
- Data quality disapprovals: Your product doesn't comply with our product data specification.
Update your product data
The “Needs Update” column lets you know if your product needs to be refreshed. “Needs Update” is an indicator overlaid on existing statuses, not a status itself.
If your product is marked as "Needs Update", this means you must update product data, not necessarily that there’s a change in your product's overall status.
- Products enter this status 30 days after their last update.
- Update your product data regularly to maximize visibility to potential customers.
- Neglecting to update your product data can result in decreased visibility and the removal of your product from Merchant Center.
Product count discrepancy in Merchant Center
Merchant Center Classic vs. Merchant Center Next:
Merchant Center Classic counts products for different destinations and target countries separately, while Merchant Center Next unifies them.
Merchant Center Next and Shopping Content API:
Merchant Center Next and Shopping Content API (SCAPI) count products differently, which can cause confusion. Merchant Center Next counts each product only once, while SCAPI counts each product multiple times if it's sold in multiple countries. This difference will likely persist for a long time, so be aware of it when comparing product counts between the two platforms.
Learn more about issues in Merchant Center.
Change the visibility of your products
Sometimes, you may want to hide a product from showing on Google (for example, when a product is out of stock). Or, you want to show a product again (for example, in preparation for a special sale). You can change how visible your product is by using the “Visibility” column.
In Merchant Center, select Products
.
Scroll to the table in the “All products” tab.
(Recommended) Use the filter option
above the table and select Visibility to filter the table by hidden or visible products.
Find the product(s) that you want to hide or show.
Select the dot and change the visibility.
Next steps
- If your products are not approved or limited in where they show, use the “Needs attention” tab in Merchant Center to diagnose any issues with your products.
- You can change the visibility of your product at any time.