As of a few days ago, all my products have disappeared from google free shopping listings after having been there for a year. A few facts:
all items are approved except for the small portion (less than 10%) that are out of stock
Paid shopping ads still work
I have no warnings on my GMC account, no issues with diagnostics, everything is clean
no issues or warnings with google search console
I have not changed anything on my product feed
i am using simprosys app for feed management if that matters - they said they had no clue what’s happening
any idea? I used to have universal top 1-5 spots in all categories for my products and now they are gone. Any combo of “product + my brand name” yields nothing. No page 1, no page 10, no page 100. Totally gone.
Please let me know if anyone has encountered this before and if I can do anything. Thanks in advance
I recommend rechecking everything, such as account settings in GMC.
Double check your data feed, what has changed.
If everything is correct, then most likely you either overlooked something, or there is an issue with Google. Which in this case you need to ask Google for help.
Thanks - is there some sort of change history function for GMC like you have in google ads? anything off the top of your head that could have been inadvertently changed that would set this off?
Greetings! I am Gina from the flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot.
There are several reasons why your products may have disappeared from Google free shopping listings.
Google algorithm update
Google frequently updates its algorithm, which can impact how products are displayed in search results.
Violation of policies
If your products violate Google’s policies, they may be removed from free shopping listings. Make sure your products comply with Google’s Merchant Center guidelines.
Technical issues
There may be technical issues with your feed or website that are causing your products to be removed from free shopping listings. Check to make sure your product feed is properly formatted and that there are no errors or warnings.
Increased competition
It’s possible that your competitors have improved their product listings or increased their ad spend, which could be impacting your visibility in free shopping listings.
Inventory issues
If a large number of your products are out of stock, this could impact your visibility in free shopping listings. Try to keep your inventory up-to-date to avoid this issue.
It’s important to note that even if you haven’t made any changes to your product feed, Google may still update its algorithm, which could impact how your products are displayed. I recommend reaching out to Google support for further assistance in troubleshooting this issue.
@ctwork3120 No, there is no change history in GMC. Which is something I wanted for years. As I too, a professional in my field, sometimes struggle to spot changes. In the end I find everything, but that is only because I know what is correct and what is not.
The only way is to check the data feed that you currently have, and see if there is anything incorrect.
Google says there is nothing they can do to investigate it as its generated by the algorithm and they said there’s nothing that they can do. I have zero penalties on GMC or GSC. I have fixed even the most minor inconsequential errors on GMC that have never caused issues in the past. I don’t know what other levers to pull, as all of my shopping ads run fine, and still error free.
We have experienced the same thing starting around Mar 20, 2023. Went from 10K free impression/day to about 50-100. Notably if you check reports, there are still high impressions for assisted listings (e..g image search) but nothing on the shopping tab. Not sure what’s causing this, please update us if you make a change that you think resolved this
Same thing happed to me as well, 20th of March all the products fell of the free listings. Paid ads are still working fine. Google support was of no assistance and no idea where to go next.
Something extremely curious I noticed is that when we first started our Merchant account got suspended. That was Mar 21, 2022. Exactly one year later, our free listings are gone, coincidence?
Question for the experts: could this be some kind of Google bug, and how could it be reported? The google support center is absolutely horrible in this regard and continue denying what going on, even to the extent of saying that everything looks “great” with no path for resolving this
Yeah google support was below expectation. I tried on 5 occasions and every time they said it was the “algoritham”
Nothing changed my end and all products were listed previously. As of the 20th not one of my 120 products lines is listed. If anyone comes up with a solutions would be keen to hear about it.
Our free listings traffic was also dropped to 0 since March 20, and now I am not able to find any of my free listings. Maybe there was an algorithm update that affects most of us on the same day?
Same issue to my Free Listing impression drop significantly and they are no where to be seen on Google Shopping tab since early April. Google Support is below expectation, they even said that they don’t support issue with free listing but Google Ads only.
This happened to me too, all impressions are at 0 from March 21st (AEST timezone) so March 20 US time zones. All shoppings ads are still live but all free listings are gone despite merchant center saying they’re active. Has anyone had any luck in resolving this? what could it be? so very distressing for a small business.
Just FYI nothing has changed for us. Impressions went from 10K/day to 50-100/day. In the last week they “increased” to 200/day still effectively shadowbanned. I can’t find evidence that google is targeting smaller stores… there are plenty of obscure small stores still showing on free listing. Very confusing and no way to get it solved.
Please do not shoot the messenger, I am just relaying what they told me. So for those who had performance, may now need to re-check everything and make sure they have connected everything, added everything and improved everything.
Please note, I am not starting a debate, and again, only referring the info Google has given me. I am a Google Ads Product Expert and I can ask and get help for specific issues. The only times they don’t help, to ensure it is fair for everyone is related to free listings. It would be unfair if Google gives us product experts info regarding free listings that nobody else gets.
I also tried going through many google channels and the response is the same sad response. From all we can gather, Google has made an algorithmic change around Mar 20 that effectively limited the visibility for many of us.
Logically this is not an issue related to a change we made right before, otherwise we would not all have been affected on the same date. This is related to something about our store. Can I kindly ask you to respond to this thread with this information
how many items are in your feed? 18,000+
what is your website authority score? 15 (Semrush)
when did you start using Merchant center? May 2022
have you experience a significant change in organic ranking in 2023? Yes, traffic dropped by half from Dec to Mar due to toxic backlinks, then recovered after disavowing these backlinks in March
what % of products in your merchant account were affected by errors before Mar 20? <1% on average, problem fixed at the end of each day
what % of products in your merchant account were affected by warnings before Mar 20? 10-25%
Please feel free to add more information that you think may be related to generic trust factor that google may be using as it may help us troubleshoot this! We need to find a common denominator among us to resolve this!
Additional follow up: in my core web vital page there is an interesting change which also happened on March 20, I am not sure why valid impressions started showing on March 20, but thought of sharing to see if others see the same thing…
