Issue: After briefly fixing “expiring” items by toggling shipping settings in Google Merchant Center (GMC) via Shopify, products now only appear in Google Shopping or product carousels on Search for about 3 hours before disappearing. This started after end-of-May changes where shipping settings were left altered for over an hour. Support advised waiting 24–48 hours; intermittent 3‑hour visibility continues. Account uses free listings, and OP says GMC shows no issues.
Context: In March 2024, GMC began flagging items as expiring within 3 days. A quick manual→automatic→manual shipping toggle refreshed the feed and cleared expirations. The same approach later preceded the current visibility problem.
Explanations suggested:
Feed freshness/expiration: Items can expire if the feed isn’t updated every 30 days or if the expiration_date attribute is near; “expiring” labels can be normal with short expiries.
Possible disapprovals: Shipping setting changes may have removed shipping details, causing item disapprovals despite appearing “fine.”
App reliability: The free Google & YouTube Shopify app may be unstable; an alternative feed app was recommended.
Status and next steps: No confirmed cause for the 3‑hour visibility windows. Check for item disapprovals and shipping configuration in GMC, verify feed update cadence and expiration_date, consider a different feed app, and pursue Google support. Discussion unresolved.
Summarized with AI on December 27.
AI used: gpt-5.
I’ve been using Google Merchant for over a year and never had any products expire. However, in March 2024, Google Merchant started showing that some of my products were expiring within 3 days. I found a solution to push data from Shopify to Google to refresh all the products so they wouldn’t expire. I just changed the shipping settings from manual to automatic and then back to manual within 15 minutes. The expiring products refreshed, and everything was fine.
There were no issues until the end of May. Products were about to be expire again. I changed the shipping settings again, but this time I kept them changed for more than 1 hour. After setting them back, Google stopped showing my products in Google Shopping. Support told me to wait 24-48 hours. Yesterday, my products reappeared in Google Shopping, but only for 3 hours before disappearing again. Today, it happened again. Sometimes my products appear in Google Shopping, sometimes in the main Google Search with the field that shows products from Google Shopping, and sometimes on both pages. This all happens within 3 hours.
Everything in GMC is fine. I use free listing ads.
Products can expire if the feed isn’t updated every 30 days.
The second main reason is the [expiration_date] field in the product attributes. If the expiration date is within 3 days of the current date, it’ll expire. If you’re updating your product data daily, it’s okay to set short expiration dates but the products will be shown as “expiring” in your account.
Most likely the reason for dropping is due to disapprovals. For example if the shipping settings where deleted due to your actions, then the products will be disapproved due to no shipping details.
I am guessing you are using the google and youtube app, this is honestly not a great solution.
I’ve been using the free Google and YouTube app for almost 14 months, but I only faced the expiring product issue in March, and then again at the end of May. However, the expiration issue is not the problem right now. The problem is why Google shows my products only for 3 hours per day?