How to Fix Product Image Disapprovals in Google Merchant Center

Finding Image Disapprovals

In GMC, go to Products > Diagnostics. Look for issues under the Image category. Common issues:

• •Image too small
• •Invalid image URL
• •Promotional text or logo overlay
• •Image not available (URL returns error)

Fix: Image Too Small

Google requires a minimum of 100x100px, but products with small images have severely limited reach. The fix is to upload larger images.

If you're on Shopify: upload images at minimum 800x800px. Shopify serves optimized versions automatically.

If you're on WooCommerce: check your product image settings under Appearance > Customize > WooCommerce > Product Images. Set the main image size to at least 800px wide.

After updating images on your site, trigger a feed re-fetch in GMC.

Fix: Invalid Image URL

The image URL returns an error (404, 403, or timeout). Common causes:

• •Image was deleted from the server
• •CDN returned a temporary error during Google's crawl
• •Image URL format changed after a platform migration

Check the URL directly in a browser. If it returns an error, re-upload the image and update the URL in your feed.

Fix: Promotional Text Overlay

Google detects promotional text, watermarks, and badges overlaid on product images. Remove any banners, sale badges, "New Arrival" text, or brand watermarks from the main product image.

Move promotions to the title or description attributes, or use the promotion_id attribute to connect to a Google Merchant Promotion.

Fix: Image Not Available

If a large number of images suddenly become unavailable, check:

• •CDN outage or configuration change
• •Hotlinking protection that's now blocking Googlebot's IP range
• •Product image directory moved or renamed

After fixing, use the Fetch now button in GMC to trigger an immediate re-crawl.