In the competitive world of eCommerce, getting your products in front of the right customers is critical. Google Shopping enables merchants to showcase products directly on Google Search, Google Shopping, and other Google platforms. With the right setup, you can drive high-quality traffic and boost conversions.

Magento 2 does not provide native support for Google Shopping feeds. However, with the help of dedicated Magento 2 Google Shopping Feed extensions, you can easily create, manage, and optimize feeds in compliance with Google Merchant Center requirements.In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the complete process of setting up and managing a Google Product Feed in Magento 2, ensuring optimal performance and SERP visibility.

What is Google Shopping and Google Merchant Center?

Google Shopping is a powerful advertising channel that displays products from various merchants directly in Google’s search results. To get your products listed, you need to submit your product data to Google Merchant Center using a properly formatted product feed.

Required & Optional Fields

Before creating your feed, make sure you understand Google Merchant Center’s attribute requirements. The full, most up-to-date list is always available in the official Google Merchant Center documentation.

Below is an overview of the most common required attributes:

link – Product’s landing page URL (not explicitly in your pasted section but implied in intro rules).
image_link – Main product image URL.
availability – Product availability status.
availability_date – Only required if availability is set to preorder or backorder.
price – Product price.
brand – Required for all new products (except movies, books, and musical recordings).
gtin – Required if available (strongly recommended).
mpn – Required if no GTIN exists.
condition – Required if product is used or refurbished.
adult – Required if product contains adult content.
multipack – Required for multipacks in specified countries or free listings if multipack.
is_bundle – Required for bundles in specified countries or free listings if bundle.
certification – Required in EU/EFTA/UK for regulated products (e.g., energy labels).
age_group – Required for apparel in specified countries or with assigned age group.
color – Required for apparel in specified countries or with multiple colors.
gender – Required for apparel in specified countries or gender-specific products.
material – Required if material distinguishes variants.
pattern – Required if pattern distinguishes variants.
size – Required for apparel & shoes in specified countries or multiple sizes.
item_group_id – Required for product variants in specified countries or for free listings.
external_seller_id – Required for multi-seller accounts.
shipping – Required in specified countries for Shopping ads and free listings.

Why Your Store Needs Google Shopping Feed Extension

Magento 2 doesn’t offer a built-in solution to export Google-compliant product feeds. Using a Magento 2 Google Merchant Feed extension allows you to:

Generate XML or CSV feeds
Map Magento categories to Google Taxonomy
Automate feed generation via cron jobs
Add custom attributes like GTIN, MPN, and Brand

Magento 2 Google Google Shopping Feed

Quickly create product feeds for Google Shopping Ads and promote your products across different channels.

How to Install the Extension

To install the extension, follow this guide.

Creating Google Product Feed in Magento 2 in 6 Steps

Step 1: General Settings

To Enable Canonical Tags in Magento 2:

Go to Plumrocket > Manage Data Feed List.
Click Add New Data Feed.
In the General Settings section, find the Select Template dropdown and choose Google Shopping Feed.
Select Data Feed Type, whether your feed should include Products or Categories based on your campaign needs.
Enter a name for your data feed. If you’re editing an existing feed, update it here.
Define a unique URL path for the data feed. This will be used to access the feed file.
Select the store view where this feed will be generated.
Set a limit on the number of items to include in the feed. Leave it at 0 or blank to include all products.
Specify how long the feed should be cached. Set to 0 to disable caching for this feed.
Enable or disable the data feed.

Google Product Feed in Magento 2: General configurations

Step 2: Product Selection and Filtering

Our Google Merchant Feed extension for Magento 2 offers a powerful filtering system to give you precise control over which products appear in your feed.

Product Selection and Filtering:

Navigate to the Filters tab in your new data feed setup.
Set Include Out Of Stock Products to “No” to ensure only available products are included.
Under Conditions, define product selection criteria. You can set them up to meet your specific goals, but by default, you’ll see the following conditions activated:
- Product Enable Product is Enabled: Only enabled products will be included.
- Product Visibility is not Not Visible Individually: Ensures child or hidden products are excluded.
- Product Quantity is In Stock: Filters out any out-of-stock items.

Each condition must be met for a product to be included in the feed. This step ensures your Google feed remains clean, relevant, and compliant with Google’s listing policies.

Step 3: Customizing the Feed Template

Now you can customize the template of your data feed.

Customizing the Feed Template:

Navigate to the Template Editor tab from the left-hand menu.
Here, you will see three main sections: Header, Item Element, and Footer.
- Header & Footer: These define the opening and closing tags of your XML feed. You generally should not need to edit these.
- Item Element: This is the most important section. It contains the code that is repeated for every product in your feed, pulling data from Magento attributes like {product.sku} and {product.name}.

Step 4: Mapping Categories to Google’s Taxonomy

Mapping your Magento categories to Google’s Product Taxonomy is essential for accurate product classification. It ensures Google understands what you’re selling — boosting ad relevance, visibility, and click-through rates.

How to Map Categories in the Feed Configuration:

Navigate to the Category Mapping tab.
Select your target country from the Country dropdown, and choose the appropriate product data language in the Language field.
In the Mapping section, match each of your store’s categories with the corresponding marketplace categories.

Google Product Feed in Magento 2: Mapping Categories

Step 5: Scheduling Automatic Feed Updates

To ensure your product data in Google Merchant Center remains accurate and up-to-date, it’s essential to automate the feed generation process. Manually creating and uploading your feed is inefficient and can lead to discrepancies in price and availability. Scheduling updates keeps your feed fresh, compliant with Google’s policies, and reliable for your customers.

Scheduling Automatic Feed Updates:

From the left-hand menu, navigate to the Schedule Automatic Updates tab.
Set the Enable Scheduling dropdown menu to “Yes”.
Configure the frequency of your feed updates:
- Days of the Week: Select the days you want the feed to be regenerated. Google requires feeds to be updated at least every 30 days.
- Time of the Day: Choose a specific time for the update to run. It is best practice to schedule this during your store’s off-peak hours (e.g., early morning) to minimize any potential impact on server performance.

Step 6: Automating Feed Uploads via SFTP/FTP

Once your shopping feed is generated and scheduled, the final step is to automate its delivery to Google Merchant Center. The most reliable method for this is using Scheduled Fetches via SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol).

This allows Google to pull the latest version of your feed file directly from your server on a schedule you define in your Merchant Center account. Our Google Product Feed extension for Magento 2 facilitates this by uploading the generated file to your server via SFTP/FTP.

First, you’ll need to set up SFTP in your Google Merchant Center account. To accomplish this, navigate to Settings > Data Sources > SFTP and Google Cloud Storage.

Google Product Feed in Magento 2: set up SFTP in your Google Merchant Center account

Once you have your credentials, follow these steps in Magento:

Automating Feed Uploads via SFTP/FTP:

Navigate to the FTP Upload tab.
Set Enabled to “Yes” to activate the automatic upload feature.
In the Protocol dropdown, select SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol. While FTP is an option, SFTP is encrypted and the recommended standard for security.
Enter the server details provided by Google Merchant Center:
- Host: The server address.
- Port: The port for the connection.
- User: Your SFTP username from Google Merchant Center.
- Password: The SFTP password you generated in Merchant Center.
- Path: Enter the exact filename you registered for this feed in Google Merchant Center (e.g., google_shopping_feed.xml).
Click the Test Connection button to verify that your credentials are correct and Magento can successfully connect to the server.
Finally, click Save to apply all your feed configurations.

With this final step configured, the entire process is now automated. The Google merchant feed extension will generate the feed on schedule and upload it to the server, where Google Merchant Center will then fetch it, ensuring your product listings are always current.

How to Upload a Product Feed to Google Merchant Center

After configuring and generating your feed in Magento, the final step is to add it to your Google Merchant Center account so Google can access your product data and begin displaying your items.

In Merchant Center Next, this is done by creating a Primary data source in the Data sources section.

How to Upload a Product Feed:

Log in to your Google Merchant Center account.
In the left-hand menu, go to Products → Data sources.
Click Add product source.
Select how to add products:
- Add product from a file
- Use Google Sheets
- Add products using API
Enter required details

Conclusion

Setting up a fully optimized Google Merchant feed in Magento 2 doesn’t have to be complex. With the right extension and a step-by-step approach, you can generate accurate, up-to-date product data that complies with Google Merchant Center requirements and drives high-quality traffic to your store.

Whether you’re aiming to grow visibility, improve product targeting, or increase conversions, a well-managed Google product feed for Magento 2 is essential for success. Now you’re fully equipped to stay competitive in Google Shopping and deliver a better shopping experience to your customers.

Ready to take the next step? Implement your feed, monitor its performance, and keep optimizing—it’s one of the smartest moves you can make in your Magento ecommerce journey.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Does Magento 2 support Google Product Feed natively?

No, Magento 2 does not offer native support for Google-compliant product feeds. To generate and manage a Google product feed in Magento 2, you need a third-party extension that meets Google’s format and attribute requirements.

What’s the best way to automate a Magento 2 Google Merchant feed?

The most efficient way is to use a feed extension that supports:

Automated scheduling via cron jobs
SFTP/FTP upload to Google Merchant Center
Real-time updates for price and stock changes
This ensures your Magento 2 Google Merchant feed stays accurate and compliant without manual work.

How often should I update my Google Shopping feed?

Google recommends updating your feed at least every 30 days, but daily updates are best practice—especially if your prices or inventory change frequently.

Can I submit multiple Magento store views to Google Shopping?

Yes, most advanced Magento 2 feed extensions support multi-store and multi-language feeds. You can create a separate feed for each store view and submit them individually to Merchant Center.