Google Shopping & Meta Product Feed Checker
Find what Merchant Center or Meta would reject in your feed before you upload it.
Your feed
Check it for
Every check runs in this browser, so a catalogue that is not public yet stays private. The checks follow each platform’s published product data rules; the platform itself has the last word.
Choose a feed file or paste its text.
Problems
About the Google Shopping & Meta Product Feed Checker
A product feed is checked by Google Merchant Center, Meta Commerce Manager or Pinterest only after you upload it, and the problems come back one batch at a time. This checker reads the same file first — a CSV, a tab-separated file or an XML feed (RSS 2.0 or Atom) — and lists every problem by row, attribute and fix: required attributes, maximum lengths (for Google: id 50, title 150 and description 5,000 characters), availability and condition values, prices with an ISO 4217 currency, image and product URLs, duplicate ids, GTIN length and check digit, GTINs in GS1’s restricted and coupon ranges, the brand, GTIN or MPN rules, sale-price dates, variants of one group and the apparel attributes (age group, gender, colour and size) for the countries that require them.
The file is read in your browser, so a catalogue that is not public yet stays private. The problem list downloads as a CSV to work through or to hand to whoever keeps the catalogue.
How to use it
- Choose the feed file (CSV, tab-separated text or XML), or paste its text.
- Choose the platform: Google Merchant Center, a Meta catalog or a Pinterest catalog. For Google, tick the box if you sell clothing or accessories in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK or the US.
- Read the problems by attribute, then item by item: each one names the row, the attribute, what is wrong and how to fix it. Filter by errors or warnings, or by one attribute.
- Download the problem list as a CSV, fix the feed (or the products in your shop), and check it again.
Examples
gtin 4006381333932
Error: the check digit is wrong — the last digit should be 1 (GS1’s modulo-10 check of the other twelve digits). Compare it with the number under the barcode.
gtin 212345678992 (a UPC whose 13-digit form starts with 02)
Error: the GTIN is in a restricted range (02, 04 or 2), which Google does not take. Use the manufacturer’s GTIN, or the brand and the MPN.
google_product_category 212 (Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Shirts & Tops), no color, age_group or gender
Three errors: Google needs color, age_group and gender for apparel sold in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US (size too, which this row has).
availability in_stock, price 24.00USD
Warnings: Meta writes “in stock”, and asks for a space before the currency code (24.00 USD).
Common uses
- Checking a feed before the first upload to Merchant Center, Meta Commerce Manager or Pinterest.
- Finding why products are disapproved or have limited reach: missing identifiers, apparel attributes, bad prices.
- Checking a feed an agency, a plugin or an export built, before it replaces the one that works.
- Auditing barcodes: wrong check digits, store-internal numbers and UPC-E codes in a catalogue.
What is checked for Google Merchant Center
- Required for every item: id, title, description, link, image_link, availability and price; brand for every new product except movies, books and music; availability_date for a pre-order.
- Limits: id 50, title 150, description 5,000, brand and mpn 70, item_group_id 50, product_type 750, color and size 100 (40 per colour), each custom label 100 characters; up to 10 additional images.
- Values: availability in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder or backorder; condition new, refurbished or used; age_group newborn, infant, toddler, kids or adult; gender male, female or unisex; yes or no for identifier_exists, adult and is_bundle.
- Prices: the number and the ISO 4217 code (15.00 USD); a sale price lower than the price, in the same currency; sale dates as two ISO 8601 times joined by “/”, the start first.
- Identifiers: a GTIN, or the brand and the MPN; products that have neither (custom-made goods) set identifier_exists to no.
- Apparel (Apparel & Accessories in google_product_category): color, age_group and gender, and size for clothing and shoes, in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US; for free listings everywhere.
- google_product_category: an ID or a full path from Google’s product taxonomy, not both.
The rules are those of Google’s product data specification.
GTINs
A GTIN has 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits (spaces and dashes are ignored) and its last digit is a check digit: weigh the other digits 3, 1, 3, 1 … from the right, add them up, and the check digit is what brings the sum to the next multiple of ten. Google does not take GTINs in GS1’s restricted ranges — on their 13-digit form, those starting with 02, 04 or 2, numbers shops and companies give their own goods — or in the coupon ranges 05, 98 and 99. An 8-digit UPC-E is asked to be written as the 12-digit UPC-A it stands for. Never invent a GTIN: when a product has none, leave gtin empty (Google’s GTIN rules).
What is checked for Meta and Pinterest
- Meta: id, title, description, availability, condition, price, link, image_link and brand are required; id 100, title 200, description 9,999, brand and mpn 100, color and size 200 characters; availability “in stock” or “out of stock”; age_group adult, all ages, teen, kids, toddler, infant or newborn; up to 20 additional images; a description in plain text that differs from the title and holds no links; an id used twice means Meta ignores every copy (Meta’s catalog fields reference).
- Pinterest: id (127 characters), title (500), description (10,000), link (511), image_link (2,000), price and availability (“in stock”, “out of stock” or “preorder”) are required; a price without a currency code is read as US dollars (Pinterest’s catalog guide).
Limitations
- MySmartCoPilot is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google or Meta.
- Images and links are checked as addresses only: the checker does not download them, so it cannot see an image’s size, a broken page or a price that differs from your site.
- Account settings — shipping, tax, return policies, a verified domain — and the platforms’ editorial and policy reviews happen after the upload and are not covered.
- The platforms change their rules from time to time; when a platform reports something this checker does not, the platform’s own message wins.
- Feeds up to 150 MB, in UTF-8 or UTF-16 with its byte-order mark; other encodings are read as Windows-1252 and reported.
Privacy
On this device; its files download once
Everything happens in your browser. What you enter or open here is not uploaded or stored by MySmartCoPilot. Downloads its XML reader and Google’s category list from this site the first time a feed needs them; your feed never leaves this browser.
Frequently asked questions
Which file formats can it read?
Delimited text with a header row (CSV or tab-separated, the way Google’s templates and most exports write it) and XML feeds in RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 with the Google namespace (g:id, g:price …). Attribute names are read with or without the g: prefix, with spaces or underscores.
Is a warning a problem?
An error is something the platform’s rules require; such an item may be rejected. A warning is something that usually works but is not written the way the platform specifies, or a check that needs a decision from you, such as two variants of a group that look the same.
Why does it say a GTIN is restricted?
Numbers starting with 02, 04 or 2 (on their 13-digit form) are given out by shops and companies for their own use — for example by a supermarket for goods weighed at the counter — and are not unique worldwide, so Google does not take them as GTINs.
How do I fix many rows at once?
Fix them in your shop or product sheet and build the feed again; the Product Feed Builder maps a Shopify or WooCommerce export to a feed and cleans titles, GTINs and HTML on the way.