---
title: "Merchant Center - Product feeds, attributes, AI | EdgeAngel"
description: "Merchant Center and product feed experts: data sources, attribute rules, conversational attributes, Merchant API. We audit and enrich your catalogue."
url: https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/merchant-center
lang: en
---

> Site index for agents, read it before exploring further : https://edgeangel.co/llms.txt
> Canonical HTML page, which also carries the diagrams and visuals : https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/merchant-center

[Other tools](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/sea#approche-c4)

# Merchant Center and product feed experts

## Enrich your product feeds and get your listings ready for AI search.

We audit and enrich your product feeds: the attributes that drive eligibility, the ones that are missing, and the ones models read.

[Book a discovery call](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/merchant-center#contact)

-   Learn more about: [our SEA and Merchant Center agency](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/sea)

Partner Premier

[Scroll to the content](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/merchant-center#expertise)

EdgeAngel Merchant Center expertise

## Sending the catalogue, enriching it, keeping it servable

01

### Data sources and attribute rules

A feed is a contract between your catalogue and Google. We write it, and we maintain it as the catalogue moves.

-   **Primary and supplemental sources**: the reference feed, then the supplements that enrich it without touching what exists, up to 200 sources per account
-   **Attribute rules**: the operations that transform your data on arrival, extract, prepend, replace, calculate, with a draft mode before applying
-   **Custom matching**: a supplemental source joined on something other than the identifier, when your back office does not speak the same language
-   **Feed labels and markets**: one catalogue, several countries and languages, without duplicating the source
-   **Wiring to campaigns**: the catalogue attached to [Google Shopping](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/google-shopping) and [Performance Max](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/performance-max), with filtering on the products shared

02

### Catalogue richness and conversational attributes

This is the work almost no merchant has done, and the one that changes what conversational systems understand about your products.

-   **The six conversational attributes**: questions and answers, related product, item group title, variant option, popularity rank, document link. Optional, with no effect on approval status, and available in all countries
-   **The documents Google reads**: up to five PDFs per product, from which Google states it extracts frequently asked questions itself. On a technical catalogue with manuals, this is the cheapest lever
-   **Titles and descriptions**: 150 characters for a title, 5,000 for a description. Most feeds send a fraction of that, often truncated by the connector
-   **Images and video**: up to ten additional images and ten videos per product, from 6 to 240 seconds, at 720p minimum
-   **Shipping and returns transparency**: return policy, handling and transit times, minimum order value, daily handling cutoff time
-   **Attribute completeness**: the completeness score as a starting point, and the list of products missing the structured attributes Google expects

03

### Compliance, diagnostics and CSS

A disapproved product does not serve, an approved one is not guaranteed to. Both are monitored.

-   **Actual servability**: reading by status, disapproved then demoted then warning, rather than by an approval rate that hides what matters
-   **Product identifiers**: GTIN, MPN and brand, the basis on which Google matches your offer against other merchants'
-   **Comparison shopping services**: in France as in twenty other European countries, serving goes through a CSS, and several may coexist on Shopping ads
-   **Merchant policies**: returns, shipping and customer support, required for several formats and declarable at product level
-   **AI-generated content disclosure**: a title or an image produced by a model must be declared, and European regulation requires it
-   **Keeping up**: the product specification changes every year, and the minimum image size moves to 500 × 500 pixels on 31 January 2027

04

### Merchant API, automation and reporting

The Content API for Shopping has been sunset since 18 August 2026. Any in-house integration still calling it receives errors.

-   **Migrating to the Merchant API**: resources changed name and shape, the target country became a feed label, and a version number prevents out-of-order writes
-   **Quotas and cadence**: two product updates a day by default, quota reset at noon UTC, and a batch of 500 inserts counting as 500 calls
-   **Reports and queries**: product performance, price competitiveness, competitive visibility and best sellers, queryable in a dedicated query language
-   **BigQuery transfer**: the catalogue and its performance landed in [your warehouse](https://edgeangel.co/en/data-foundations/modern-data-stack), with two years of performance history
-   **Our MCP servers**: a Merchant Center server written by our team, to audit a catalogue and query its diagnostics from a language model

The tool

## Merchant Center, our reading

Google Merchant Center is where a merchant submits its catalogue for distribution across Google: free listings, Shopping ads, Performance Max, YouTube. **The name « Merchant Center Next » disappeared in July 2026**, Google having reverted to plain « Merchant Center ». A feed is submitted by file, by scheduled fetch or by API, within a limit of 150,000 products per scope on a standalone account.

The work of the year lies elsewhere: **the Content API for Shopping was sunset on 18 August 2026** in favour of the Merchant API, and requests still arriving there have been receiving HTTP 410 errors since 1 September. Google also opened, in May 2026, **six so-called conversational attributes**, optional, available in all countries, and with no effect on the approval of existing products.

Updated September 2026

### A feed's problem is almost never compliance

A Merchant Center account shows an approval rate, and that figure reassures for the wrong reasons. We regularly see catalogues approved above 98 %, with no alerts at all, that **send around twenty attributes out of the fifty the specification allows**: descriptions cut by the connector well below the 5,000-character limit, no additional images although the product page hosts a dozen, no manufacturer GTIN, a single-level product type. The feed is compliant. It is poor. And a system choosing between two comparable products picks the one it understands.

### What Google asks for AI surfaces, and what it does not

On this subject, Google's documentation is more sober than the surrounding discourse. It writes that there are **no additional requirements nor special optimizations** to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: an indexed page eligible for a snippet is enough, and on the merchant side, an up-to-date feed. The same documentation adds a section dismantling fashionable recipes, noting that Google Search **ignores llms.txt files**. What Google actually asks is written elsewhere, in its advice on AI performance reports: put the relevant search terms into titles and descriptions, and fill in the missing attributes.

### The gap between US announcements and what can be switched on in France

This is the part French content does not tell. **The agentic commerce protocol and checkout inside Google surfaces cover only the United States, Canada and Australia**, on an allow list and under US terms of service. The conversational business agent requires a US-based store. And the report that would measure your visibility in AI answers exists only in English, across five countries that do not include France. **With no measurement tool available in Europe, we do not sell an AI visibility promise.** What can be switched on here, and what we work on: the six conversational attributes, shipping and returns transparency, the loyalty programme since March 2026, and catalogue completeness, which already pays in Shopping and Performance Max.

[Google Shopping, product ads and their campaigns](https://edgeangel.co/en/performance-acquisition/google-shopping)

Sources : [Conversational attributes, Merchant Center documentation](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/17085370) · [AI features and Google Search, what is required and what is not](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features)

## Frequently asked questions about Merchant Center and product feeds

### My feed is 98 % approved, is that enough?

Approval says your products are allowed to serve, not that they will, nor that they are understood. Google states the status « doesn't guarantee that your products will be shown ». What separates two comparable products is the richness of what you send: titles, descriptions, images, structured attributes. That is where we look first.

### What are conversational attributes, and should you bother?

They are six optional attributes Google opened in May 2026: questions and answers, related product, item group title, variant option, popularity rank, document link. They help AI systems understand your products, are available in all countries, and Google notes that adding them does not affect the approval status of what exists. They are sent through a supplemental source, without touching the primary feed.

### Does enriching the feed really help visibility in AI?

We do not promise it, because nothing measures it in France: the Merchant Center AI performance report exists only in English, across five countries outside Europe. What is established is that the quality of titles, images and shipping transparency weighs on Shopping and Performance Max. That is what justifies the work. Visibility on AI surfaces is the bonus.

### Does the Content API for Shopping still work?

No. Google sunset it on 18 August 2026 in favour of the Merchant API, and since 1 September 2026 requests without an extension receive intermittent HTTP 410 errors, ahead of a full shutdown in early 2027. If you go through an e-commerce platform, it handles the migration. If your integration is in-house, it is concerned now.

### Why is a comparison shopping service required to serve in France?

Because Shopping ads and free listings must be served through a comparison shopping service in twenty-one European countries, France included. Google Shopping is one of them among others. Several may coexist on Shopping ads, and Google documents that a merchant is never second-priced against itself in the auction.

Contact

## You leave your details, we get back to you within 24 hours.

A first call to understand your context, and tell you what is feasible and under which conditions.

1.  Contact details
2.  Defining your need
3.  Then we schedule a call

Your details are used to reply to you on this topic. [Data protection policy](https://edgeangel.co/en/a-propos/politique-de-protection-des-donnes)

Or call us directly: [+33 1 84 16 42 20](tel:+33184164220)

Paul Schmitt

Consulting Director

"Our goal is to make your data actionable to generate concrete value, quickly."

[The team](https://edgeangel.co/en/a-propos/agence)

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