Demoted: Missing value (Google & Youtube)

Shopify Apps
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Topic summary

A merchant is receiving “Demoted: Missing value” warnings from the Google & YouTube sales channel for products lacking age group and gender attributes in DE and FR free listings.

Current Situation:

  • Products are automatically fed into Shopify, some with categories already assigned
  • A third-party app (Channable) feeds age group, gender, and category data to Google Merchant Center as a supplementary source
  • The “Fix” button directs to a bulk editor requesting product category assignment
  • Manually assigning Shopify product categories removes the warning, but this isn’t feasible for automated product feeds

Suggested Solutions:

  • Ensure Channable’s feed and Shopify’s Google app data are properly aligned and synced
  • Use feed rules in Google Merchant Center
  • Create a supplemental feed
  • Manually edit products in Google Merchant Center
  • Use the bulk editor in the Google & YouTube app

Impact:
Ignoring these warnings can reduce product visibility and ranking on Google free listings, particularly important for apparel products competing for visibility.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

We recently uploaded a bunch of products are getting a message from the “google & youtube” sale channel ont he products (se also image):
Demoted: Missing value [age group] in [Free_listings] [DE,FR].
Demoted: Missing value [gender] in [Free_listings] [DE,FR].

![Screenshot 2025-06-06 at 11.01.02.png|614x292](upload://saK56MjjoMTKQQJ9DAxshAF0ZnY.png)

When I click the Fix button it sends me to a bulk editor where it wants me to assign a product category.

I found that manually assigning a normal Shopify product category seems to also remove the message.

However we feed our products into Shopify automatically, where some of the products are already assigned a category. It is not very feasible to go in at do it manually to every product again. When we started the store we also had some products uploaded, without a category, and they where never given a this message.

We feed this information (age group, gender and category) into Google merchant center as a supplementary source via a third party app called Channable.

I have three questions I hope you can help with:

  • Have you had these pop up before?
  • Help me get a understranding of how to solve it?
  • Do you know if us not solving this from the Google & Youtube App could hurt our ranking?
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Hi @mns-burg ,

These missing age group and gender warnings happen when Google needs those details for free listings in DE and FR. Even if Channable feeds these attributes, the Shopify Google app may not sync them properly, causing the alerts. To fix this, ensure Channable’s feed and Shopify’s Google app data align and automate category and attribute assignments. Ignoring it can hurt your product visibility and ranking on Google free listings.

Thanks!

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You can resolve it multiple ways.

The first option is to use the editor in the google and youtube app, and add it manually.

The second is using feed rules in Google Merchant Center.

You can also edit it using a supplemental feed.

And you can manually edit the products in Google Merchant Center.

If you are selling apparel products and if you want to outrank your competitors, improving your data feed quality is important.

If you don’t mind ranking lower, then no need to do anything.

Here is a video explaining, all the ways to edit, it is based on the old UI, but the principles stays the same:

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