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What is my product page telling Google? A product data check

Give a product page's address and see the product data it carries for search engines, set beside what Google requires for a merchant listing and what it only recommends: name, image, price, stock, brand and identifiers.

Such as example.com/product/blue-mug/. Our server asks for that one page, as a browser would, and keeps neither the address nor the page.

What it looks at

A product page says two things. One is for shoppers: the name, the price and the stock they see. The other is for search engines: a block of data in the page's code that says the same in a form a machine reads. Google uses that second one for the prices, stock and ratings it shows in its results. Our server asks for the page at the address you give and reads that block.

It sets what it finds beside Google's own documentation for product data, in three parts.

  • What a merchant listing requires. A name, an image, and an offer with a price and a currency. Google requires a single offer here. A price given as a range, which is what a store prints for a product whose variations cost different amounts, is accepted for a product snippet and not for a merchant listing.
  • The offer. The price and currency the data gives, and the stock status. Compare them with what a shopper sees: a difference between the two is what Merchant Center reports as a mismatch.
  • What is recommended, and not required. A brand, a global identifier such as a GTIN, a return policy, shipping details, a rating. Google lists each of these as recommended. A product without them is still eligible, and none of them is an error.

What it cannot tell you

It reads one format, JSON-LD, which is the one WooCommerce prints and the one Google recommends. It reads the page as our server is given it, once, without running the page's scripts, so data that a script adds after the page loads is not seen. It does not check that an image can be crawled or that a GTIN is a real one.

And it cannot tell you what Google will show. Product data makes a page eligible to appear with a price or a rating; it does not decide that it will. For what Google itself reads from a page, use its Rich Results Test, and for what it has done with your products, the Merchant listings and Product snippets reports in Search Console. What a WooCommerce store outputs and how to fill the gaps explains each field.

What happens to the address

The address goes to our server, which makes the request and sends back the report. Neither the address nor the page is kept or logged. The request names itself as WPMinistry-SiteCheck. Only public web addresses are asked.

Common questions

Search Console says my products are missing fields. Is that an error?
It depends on the field. Google's documentation separates what is required from what is recommended. A missing name, image, price or currency makes a product ineligible. A missing return policy, shipping detail, brand or GTIN does not: those are recommended, and a product is still eligible without them.
It says my price is a range. Why does that matter?
A store prints a lowest and a highest price for a product whose variations cost different amounts. Google's documentation says product snippets accept that form, and merchant listings require a single offer with one price. So such a product can show a price range in ordinary results and still not qualify as a merchant listing.
It found no product data, but I am on a product page. Why?
Check what a visitor who is not signed in gets at that address: a store that has not been launched shows them a holding page with no product on it. Otherwise a theme or a plugin may have switched the data off, or it may be added by a script after the page loads, which this check does not run.
Should I add a GTIN or a brand to make the notices go away?
Add them where they are true. A product that has a manufacturer's barcode has a GTIN, and adding it helps a search engine tell which product it is. A product made by hand or sold under your own name may have none, and an invented one is worse than none.

Rather have your product data put right?

Tell us the store's address and what Search Console or Merchant Center is reporting. We look at the store itself and reply with the cause and a fixed quote. The diagnosis is free.

Get a free diagnosis