Google Merchant Center for free: get your products on Google before 11.11

Most store owners hear about Google Merchant Center in the context of ads. Yet products can also show up on Google without campaigns and without paying for clicks. The condition: the store has a correctly configured account and feed, meaning a file or a connection with product data.

I’m writing this as of 19 October 2026, a few weeks before 11.11 (Singles’ Day) and Black Friday. I’ll show what you need to do to have your products displayed for free, how to prepare sale prices in the feed and why it’s worth checking whether your plugin already runs on the new API.

What “free” means in Merchant Center

Merchant Center is a Google dashboard where you upload product data: names, prices, photos, availability. Google uses it in ads and in free listings. According to the Merchant Center help, so-called free product listings can appear in, among others, Search, Images, Lens, the Shopping tab and Business Profile, without running a campaign. The availability of individual surfaces depends on the country.

This is not a traffic guarantee. Google decides what to show based on data quality, competition and the customer’s query. For free you get a chance of being displayed, not a result.

Paid ads are a separate matter. If you ever want to launch them, the same feed will serve campaigns, as I describe in the Google Ads service. First, though, it’s worth taking care of the free part.

Step 1: set up an account and verify your store

You need a Google account and your business details. In Merchant Center you provide the store name, country and website address, and then confirm that the website belongs to you.

At this stage also fill in the settings that are often skipped:

• shipping details: costs and delivery time,
• return policy: number of days and conditions,
• business contact details matching those on the website.

Missing this information is sometimes the reason products don’t pass verification. I check the exact requirements in the Merchant Center help, because Google changes them.

Step 2: prepare the product feed

A feed is the data source from which Google pulls products. It can be a file generated by the store or a direct connection between a plugin and Merchant Center. Each product needs several basic fields:

1. ID (fixed, don’t change it when editing),
2. title (name, brand, model, key feature),
3. description (no capital letters or advertising slogans),
4. link to the product page and link to the image,
5. price and availability,
6. brand (required for new products) and GTIN (EAN code), if the manufacturer assigns one.

The most common mistake is a price in the feed different from the one on the website. Google compares them and rejects mismatching products. That is why the feed should refresh automatically. I have such a feed, updated hourly, running in Sklep Żukowscy. If you run a store and want to put it in order, see Google Merchant and marketplaces.

Step 3: migrating to the Merchant API

This is the point that can quietly stop your products. The old Content API for Shopping was phased out on 18 August 2026. According to Google’s documentation, since 1 September 2026 requests to it increasingly end with a 410 error, meaning the information that the given API address no longer works, and a complete shutdown is planned for early 2027. On request Google gives a temporary extension, but no later than that point. Plugins and integrations should use the Merchant API.

How to check whether this applies to you:

• go to Merchant Center and open Products, the Needs attention tab, and then Data sources,
• see when products were last fetched,
• look at the store plugin settings and its maker’s website: look for a mention of the Merchant API,
• ask the person who built the integration which API it uses.

If data has stopped updating, prices and stock levels on Google are out of date, and that is a straight road to disapprovals. I do such a migration in the Product feed and Merchant API service.

Step 4: prepare sale prices in advance

Competition grows around 11.11 and Black Friday. Note: the Promotions program in Merchant Center (special offers shown next to products) works, according to Google’s help, in 13 countries, and Poland isn’t among them (as of October 2026). A store that also ships to, say, Germany can use it in that market. In Polish results only the price from the feed counts.

That is why set the discount in the feed: the sale price in the sale_price attribute, and the dates when it applies in sale_price_effective_date. The reduced price then applies on Google only in the given period. Upload the changes a few days before the start, to leave time for corrections if something gets disapproved.

Before the promotion starts, make sure that:

• the promotion has clear start and end dates,
• the price and dates in the feed are the same as on the website,
• the price before the reduction was actually applied, and with a reduction the store shows the lowest price from the 30 days before it was introduced (Art. 4(2) of the ustawa o informowaniu o cenach towarów i usług, the Polish Act on Providing Information on the Prices of Goods and Services, known as Omnibus; this is not legal advice, and if in doubt, it’s worth asking a lawyer),
• the products covered by the promotion have correct prices in the feed.

Example: a tool store with 400 products

Imagine a small power-tool store. It has 400 products, but generates its feed by hand once a week. On Wednesday the stock of a power tool falls to zero, and Google still shows “in stock”.

The result: a customer clicks, sees the item is out of stock and leaves. Google notices the mismatch and may limit displays. The solution is automatic feed refresh, for example every hour. This doesn’t require a bigger budget, only settings in the store or the plugin.

Before 11.11 the same store should do three more things: upload sale prices with dates a week earlier, check the 20 best-selling products for photos and titles, and look at the “Needs attention” tab.

Checklist before 11.11

Go through it this week, because with disapprovals you need a time buffer for corrections:

1. The Merchant Center account is verified, and shipping and returns details are filled in.
2. The plugin or integration runs on the Merchant API, and the last data fetch is recent.
3. The Needs attention tab has no critical errors or mass disapprovals.
4. Prices and availability in the feed match the website.
5. The top 20 products have good photos, titles and GTINs.
6. Sale prices are in the feed in advance, with correct validity dates.
7. The website is fast on mobile, and the cart and payments have been tested.
8. You will measure the result: GA4 shows how many orders came from Google.

Point 8 is important, because without measurement you don’t know whether free listings give you anything. If needed, I will help with analytics.

What not to do

• Don’t inflate the price in the feed and don’t change it only for the time of verification. That breaks the rules and harms the store.
• Don’t copy manufacturer descriptions to every product unchanged. Unique descriptions also help with ordinary SEO.
• Don’t leave disapprovals to the last minute. A fix and a re-review take time.
• Don’t promise yourself a lot of free traffic. Free listings are a bonus, not a sales plan.

Summary

Free product listings on Google require a properly configured Merchant Center, an up-to-date feed and an integration running on the Merchant API. Upload sale prices for 11.11 to the feed in advance, and in the “Needs attention” tab check that nothing has been disapproved.

If you want me to check your feed or move the integration, write to me. I can also prepare an online store with a ready feed for Google. I reply within 24 hours, and to start you can use the free website audit.