Shopping ads and free listings in Google Search.
Google Shopping runs on the Merchant Center product feed: the feed is the ad. A product that is missing from it, or whose record is disapproved, cannot show in Shopping ads or free listings, and a feed-wide problem can take the whole account's items down with it.
The table below is the Google Shopping spec as Ducted enforces it: the required attributes, the identifier rules around brand, GTIN and MPN, and the apparel attributes that become required in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US.
Generated from the Ducted Google Shopping template, the same field rules your mapping is validated against.
55 fields: 8 required, 3 recommended, 44 optional. 10 fields change level with the market, the product or how the record is sent.
| Field | Level | Accepted values / example |
|---|---|---|
| id | required | SKU12345 |
| title | required required for products without a structured_title | Mens Trail Running Shoes - Black |
| description | required required for products without a structured_description | |
| link | required | |
| image_link | required | |
| availability | required | in_stock · out_of_stock · preorder · backorder |
| price | required | 79.99 USD |
| brand | required required for new products with identifiers (Google exempts movies, books, music and products that truly have no brand - send identifier_exists: no for those) | Acme |
| gtin | recommended | 4006381333931 |
| mpn | recommended recommended for products without a GTIN | |
| item_group_id | recommended | SHOE123 |
| color | optional required for apparel products targeted to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US | Black / Red |
| size | optional required for clothing and shoes targeted to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US | 10 |
| gender | optional required for apparel products targeted to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US (except accessory sub-categories such as shoelaces, watch bands, keychains and lanyards) | male · female · unisex |
| age_group | optional required for apparel products targeted to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US (except accessory sub-categories such as shoelaces, watch bands, keychains and lanyards) | newborn · infant · toddler · kids · adult |
| energy_efficiency_class | optional optional for country in CH, NO, GB; not applicable for products outside Switzerland, Norway and the UK (use certification instead) | A+++ · A++ · A+ · A · B · C · D · E · F · G |
| availability_date | optional required for preorder and backorder products | 2026-05-24T13:00-0800 |
Field rules from the official spec, verified 2026-10-02.
Also supported, always optional (38): condition, google_product_category, product_type, sale_price, additional_image_link, video_link, identifier_exists, sale_price_effective_date, subscription_cost, mobile_link, size_type, size_system, material, pattern, shipping, shipping_weight, shipping_label, multipack, is_bundle, unit_pricing_measure, unit_pricing_base_measure, min_handling_time, max_handling_time, expiration_date, cost_of_goods_sold, promotion_id, ads_redirect, custom_label_0, custom_label_1, custom_label_2, custom_label_3, custom_label_4, certification, structured_title, structured_description, adult, excluded_destination, included_destination
Google accepts in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder and backorder, in any casing. "In Stock" with a space, "available" or "yes" in that column rejects the record. Preorder and backorder products also need an availability_date.
The format is an amount plus the ISO code, like 79.99 USD. A bare number or a currency symbol fails the format check; a price of 0 is flagged unless the product is sold with a subscription cost or is a mobile device sold on contract.
brand is required for new products with identifiers. Books, music, movies and products that truly have no brand are the exception: send identifier_exists set to no for those, or the record is rejected.
For apparel targeted to Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US, color, gender and age_group become required (gender and age_group except accessory sub-categories) and size becomes required for clothing and shoes. An apparel feed that carries only a title is rejected once the country and category are known, and flagged until they are.
Every id must be unique in the feed. Two variants sharing the parent product id, or a re-used SKU, are rejected; item_group_id is where the parent id belongs.
Red, Green, Black in one cell keeps only the first colour on Google. Separate up to three with a slash (Red/Green/Black); the same applies to a size that lists dimensions with a comma.
One mapped catalog serves every channel; each page covers what that platform's feed needs.
Connect a source and map it free, or check your current product feed against the Google Shopping rules first.