How Feed Doctor checks a product feed

Feed Doctor is an independent tool for inspecting Google-format product feeds. It reads the supplied file, evaluates explicit rules and reports the affected offers. It does not access your Merchant Center account, submit products to Google or certify that products will be approved.

Method documented October 5, 2026 · Feed Doctor · Product data troubleshooting guides

What the scanner checks

The current engine contains 41 rules. Each finding has a severity, explanation, recommended next action and affected product rows. A single offer can trigger multiple findings; the number of findings is not the number of distinct products rejected by Google.

For example, a valid GTIN checksum means its arithmetic is consistent, not that the manufacturer assigned it to your offer. Likewise, a parseable URL is not a successful live fetch. Price mismatch and product page availability guides explain manual checks; the scanner does not perform those investigations.

Supported inputs and limits

Upload Google RSS or Atom XML, CSV or TSV, or enter a public HTTPS feed URL. The current limit is 10 MiB and 5,000 products per scan. CSV separators include comma, semicolon and tab. These limits describe this tool, not Google’s maximum feed size. An unrelated native store export may need conversion before it becomes a Google product feed.

Select the target country before scanning. Country and identifier context affect selected rules. The first release covers the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Japan; it does not model every account, product category or destination requirement. Review Google’s current product data specification for the applicable requirements.

What the severities mean

• Critical: a required-data or format problem within the scanner’s supported scope. Review these first.
• Warning: a potential issue or requirement that needs context, such as whether an identifier exists or shipping is set up in the account.
• Optimization: a suggestion or check of a non-universal requirement. It is not automatically a disapproval.

Missing GTIN is contextual unless you explicitly declare assigned GTINs. Missing feed shipping does not prove shipping is missing from Merchant Center. Severity is Feed Doctor’s prioritization, rather than a live Google decision.

How the feed health score is calculated

Start at 100. For each triggered rule, multiply its affected-product ratio by its weight: 14 for Critical, 4 for Warning and 1 for Optimization. Subtract the sum, round to the nearest integer and keep the result at least zero.

score = max(0, round(100 − Σ(weight × affected products / scanned products)))

For a 100-product feed with one Critical rule affecting 10 products and one Warning rule affecting 20 products, the penalty is 1.4 + 0.8 = 2.2 and the score is 98. This high score still includes 10 products with a critical finding. It does not mean 98% of products will be approved or that all important account and website checks passed. Use the issue list to decide what to repair.

Labels are Excellent at 90–100, Good at 70–89, Needs work at 50–69 and Critical below 50. Counts and affected rows are more useful than the score alone when resolving an actual Merchant Center issue.

Safe repairs and manual action

Fix & Export is limited to deterministic formatting changes, such as supported whitespace or enum normalization. It does not invent GTINs, brands, MPNs, prices or missing stock facts. Keep the original file, inspect the change log and compare the regenerated offers with source data. A repaired snapshot does not update your store or prevent a scheduled exporter from restoring the old data.

Privacy and access

No Google login or store authorization is needed. Scan files and reports stay private, expire after seven days and can be deleted earlier. Feed data is not sold or used for AI model training. Full reports require the authorized scan session and, when paid access is enabled, verified payment. Read Privacy and Terms and refunds for storage and payment-record details.

How our guides are maintained

Feed Doctor publishes the guides with official reference links and visible update dates. Examples are illustrative and must not be copied as real product data. Requirements can change; confirm the applicable official specification before a bulk edit. Use the support link below to report an unclear check or inaccurate guide, including the page URL and issue description, without attaching private feed contents.