Can anyone please advise why Google Mechant Center is (recently) giving a GTIN Violated Policies error even though the product passes Googles own the structured data test for the GTIN field? The error only occurs in google merchant center / shopify dashboard and not in Google search console. This example is a single product with no variants.
An example product:
Many Thanks.
Google Merchant Center issues regarding product identifiers have nothing to do with Google Search Console.
Go to Google Merchant Center > Products > All products > click on a product with the problem > scroll down and view final attributes.
What you need to see, should be based on one of the two rules below.
If a manufacturer has assigned a bar code, then submit brand, MPN (if available), GTIN, and set identifier exists to yes.
If the manufacturer has not assigned a bar code, then remove the values brand, MPN, GTIN, and set identifier exists to no.
However, even if you don’t submit barcodes, in some cases you are required to add them because Google has identified that the specific product should have barcodes.
If you are unable to add barcodes, then you have to accept the limited performance and nothing can be done until the manufacturer has bought barcodes.
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate these points but it doesnt resolve the issue. Google Merchant centre will not read any product barcodes from Shopify (Gtins-EAN 13) unless we input a value in the Google MPN field. When you do input a value in Google MPN, Google Merchant centre does pull through the “Gtin” stored in the barcode field.
Its strange.
I have opened a shopify support ticket and will report back if there is a fix or if its a quirk of our site.
That is an issue with Shopify app you are using.
Go to Shopify > Sales Channel > Google > Manage availability > and change custom products to false.