Google Merchant Center problems on WooCommerce
Connect your store on the ShieldKit website. With Recovery, add your policy pages in one click, with undo.
How to start
Run the free store check, or create a ShieldKit account and add your store. The first full store check (11 checks) is free.
The free check on the website runs 7 of the 11 checks, with no account and nothing to install.
How fixes work
- Every problem comes with plain-English fix steps that name the WordPress and WooCommerce screens.
- Connect your store from WooCommerce’s own approval screen. ShieldKit asks for read access only.
- To let ShieldKit add pages for you, paste a WordPress application password (never your WordPress password). With Recovery, you can then add your refund, shipping, contact, privacy and terms pages in one click, and undo each one.
Prices and hidden problems
- Price Watch compares the price on each product page with your WooCommerce prices, and flags strikethrough prices that aren’t a real discount.
- With Google Merchant Center connected, it also compares each product with Google’s own price.
- Free shows how many products are affected; Monitoring and Recovery list each one.
- With Recovery, the deep check looks for causes a quick look misses: template text left on a page, social links that go to the theme maker, trust claims with nothing to back them up, urgency pop-ups and broken menu links.
You can also connect your Google Merchant Center account, read-only, to see Google’s own issues next to the store check.
All 11 checks on WooCommerce
WooCommerce publishes a product list ShieldKit can read, and your connected store gives the business details Google compares, so all 11 checks have what they need.
- RefundIn the free check
- ShippingIn the free check
- Privacy and termsIn the free check
- Contact detailsIn the free check
- Product data
- Hidden fees
- Google product listingsIn the free check
- Business identity
- Storefront accessIn the free check
- Payment displayIn the free check
- Product images
Merchant Center
How a WooCommerce store gets its products to Google
WooCommerce’s own route is the Google for WooCommerce extension. Its documentation says you can create a new Merchant Center account or link an existing one, and it sends your products through Google’s API rather than a file you host. From version 3.8.1 it uses Google’s newer Merchant API, in place of the Content API for Shopping that Google is moving away from.
- 1
Install Google for WooCommerce, then connect your WordPress account, your Google account and your Merchant Center account.
- 2
Map your product attributes once. Products sync on their own after that, so a price or stock edit reaches Google with no file to regenerate.
- 3
If a feed plugin already sends the same products, decide which of the two owns them. Leaving both running gives Google two answers for one product.
Fixing it here
What usually goes wrong on WooCommerce
WooCommerce leaves its refund policy unpublished
It creates a page called “Refund and Returns Policy” as a draft, so stores often have the text written and nothing a shopper can open. Publish it, set its visibility to Public, and add it to your footer menu in Appearance → Menus, or to the footer template in Appearance → Editor on block themes.
How to fix a missing refund policyYour terms page has to be chosen, not just written
WooCommerce reads it from WooCommerce → Settings → Advanced → Page setup → Terms and conditions. A terms page that exists but isn’t named there won’t show at checkout.
How to show your terms at checkoutGTIN has had a field of its own since WooCommerce 9.2
It’s the “GTIN, UPC, EAN, or ISBN” field on the Inventory tab, and on each variation. Older stores often still keep the number in a custom field their feed never reads.
How to fix a missing GTINNothing tells Google which products have no identifier
Google for WooCommerce doesn’t send identifier_exists, so handmade and one-of-a-kind products keep being flagged for identifiers they can’t have. Set it in your feed plugin if it offers the option, or with a supplemental data source in Merchant Center.
How to tell Google a product has no identifierCaching is why a corrected price still reads as wrong
Clear your caching plugin’s or your host’s cache after a price change, and keep product pages off long cache times if your prices move often. Google reads the page it is served, not the one in your admin.
How to fix a price mismatch