How to create a Google Shopping feed in WooCommerce

Before creating the feed, check that each product has a clear title, description, price, stock status, product image and public URL. Google’s product specification also covers identifiers, categories, shipping, returns and destination requirements. Product data that conflicts with the landing page is a common reason for disapprovals.

For branded products, use the manufacturer’s GTIN and MPN rather than inventing values. For custom or handmade products, leave GTIN blank and provide an appropriate brand and MPN instead.

You have three practical choices: let Google find products from your store’s structured data, maintain a Google Sheets or file-based source, or generate a feed from WooCommerce with a plugin. Google supports files such as XML, TXT and TSV, as well as Sheets and API sources.

The manual route is acceptable for a very small, rarely changing catalogue. It becomes risky when prices, stock, variations or product URLs change because the spreadsheet or XML file does not automatically know about WooCommerce updates.

For a manual feed, create a Google Sheets template or a product file containing one row or item per offer. Include at least the product ID, title, description, link, image link, price, availability and condition, then add brand, GTIN or MPN, Google product category and variant information where relevant.

In Merchant Center, open Settings, choose Data sources, select Add product source, then choose the file or Google Sheets option. Select the target country, language and destinations. The drawback is maintenance: every WooCommerce change must also reach the source file, or Google may show an old price or availability status.

For an automated XML feed, install a feed plugin and configure its Google or Merchant Center feed. Map WooCommerce fields to Google attributes, decide whether variations are separate offers, set defaults for missing brand or MPN values, and exclude products that cannot meet your shipping, policy or data requirements.

WooCommerce feed documentation identifies missing identifiers, incorrect categories, variation data and server timeouts as recurring problems. Large catalogues can exceed PHP memory or execution limits while the complete feed is generated, so use item caching, split feeds or hosting changes if the feed fails to load.

In Merchant Center, go to Settings and Data sources, select Add product source, choose Add products from a file, and enter the direct URL of the XML feed. The URL must point to the feed itself, not a WordPress page, and it must be accessible to Google without a blocked user agent or unexpected login screen.

Choose scheduled updates and set the fetch time after your usual product updates. Google’s current setup supports scheduled fetching from an HTTP, HTTPS, FTP or SFTP location, with the default file fetch generally occurring every 24 hours.

Open the data source’s processing results and check the item issues report. Fix the exact product fields named by Google, then update the WooCommerce product or feed mapping and fetch the source again. Check the product page as well as the feed: a valid XML file does not help if the landing page is unavailable, blocked, has a different price or lacks a working purchase path.

Fast way: use WooCommerce Google Merchant XML when you need scheduled XML generation, category or tag filtering and feed error reports. It is the quicker option for a changing catalogue because it reduces manual spreadsheet work, but you still need to supply accurate WooCommerce product data and resolve Merchant Center diagnostics.