In recent years, Google has increased the space dedicated to product features in its search results, giving e-commerce brands more opportunities to reach shoppers directly in the SERPs.
Now, the online shopping landscape has expanded even further with the rise of AI shopping, which allows users to discover, compare, and evaluate products through conversational queries and receive tailored recommendations.
For e-commerce brands, being visible across both Google Shopping and the AI shelf starts with the same foundation: your product feed.
The product data that powers your Google Shopping visibility also determines whether your products surface in experiences like ChatGPT and Google AI Mode.
That means simply having an eligible feed is no longer enough. Complete attributes, accurate product data, and descriptions that reflect how shoppers actually search can all influence product visibility.
Let’s explore how to optimize your product feed for this new era of product discovery.
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In most companies, the product feed required for AI shopping and Google Shopping is managed by the paid search team.
But product feeds also influence organic visibility. Google uses an algorithm to determine which products appear in organic shopping results, making feed optimization an opportunity for SEO teams.
That opportunity now extends to AI shopping: 83% of products in ChatGPT shopping carousels are sourced from Google Shopping’s top organic results, which rely on Merchant Center feed data.
As a result, SEO and AEO teams need to be involved in product feed optimization to maximize visibility across both traditional and AI search.
Shoppers no longer have to translate what they want into a few keywords. With ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, they can describe a product in everyday language and let AI find the best match.
For example, instead of searching for “white cotton t-shirt,” a shopper might ask: “A heavyweight white tee that isn't see-through and feels buttery soft.”
AI shopping platforms can parse that request into specific criteria (such as color, weight, opacity, and feel) and look for products that match.
This creates a challenge for traditional, spec-only product feeds. If your feed contains basic attributes but doesn’t communicate qualities like heavyweight, not see-through, or buttery soft, your product may be a great fit but still get overlooked.
For SEO and AEO teams, product feed optimization increasingly means going beyond basic specifications and enriching product data with the attributes and language shoppers actually use.
While Google’s web-ranking algorithms are well-established, the relatively newer Google Shopping algorithm presents an opportunity for businesses to achieve results with straightforward optimizations. It resembles early 2000s SEO: simple, yet effective when understood.
As such, optimizing is surprisingly straightforward, focusing on three key areas:
By leveraging these straightforward strategies, brands can tap into an underutilized avenue for driving organic traffic. Below, we’ll dive into more specific actions you can take.
Recommended Watch: How to Win Google Shopping: 5-Step Strategy [Webinar]
Attributes are the specific columns of data included in the product feed you send to Google. Google uses this product feed data to show your shopping ads and listings across its properties.
Businesses that explore additional Merchant Center attributes beyond the basics can unlock untapped opportunities for organic shopping success.
Here are some of the most important.
To optimize your product title in the Google Merchant Center, include the brand name, product/model name, and the product type.
While the Merchant Center will give you 150 characters for the product title, keep it to 30-35 characters to avoid truncation in the SERPs.
Also, avoid adding production options at the end of the product name. For example, “Bella Pro Series 3-Qt. Analog Air Fryer” is better optimized than “Bella Pro Series Analog Air Fryer, 3-Qt.”
Here’s an example of a fully visible product name:
And a truncated product name:
Products in the Merchant Center are assigned a category from a predefined list from Google. Google says that to ensure your products are categorized correctly, provide high-quality product information like the title, description, pricing, brand, and GTIN information (more on this below).
You can also use this attribute to override Google’s automatic categorization method, in some cases. There are four cases where you can submit an override for Google to review:
There are three product identifiers you can add to your Merchant Center listing that define your products. Including these values enhances the user experience and can boost your ads’ and free listings’ performance.
Choose high-quality, relevant images that comply with Google’s image guidelines. Remember this is what a user will see, so use an image that accurately reflects the product.
You can, and should, submit more than one product image. Doing so will create an image carousel that users can click through.
Google notes that non-apparel images should be square and a minimum of 100x100 pixels. Apparel images should be at least 250x250 pixels. The search engine also offers guidelines for file size: no images larger than 64 megapixels and no image file larger than 16mb.
The link to your product page is required. It’s best practice to match your product feed data with the information on this page. You don’t want to promise users one thing and deliver another.
Google says to not link to an interstitial page unless legally required.
You’ll need to enter the URL of your product’s image, one that can be crawled by Google (both Googlebot and Googlebot-image.)
Custom labels let you classify products with a certain tag. For example, products may be labeled as seasonal, best-sellers, clearance, limited-edition, etc. Then, you can monitor and report on these labels in aggregate in the Merchant Center.
Find out where your product feed may be limiting your visibility. Get a free Product Feed Audit to uncover optimization opportunities and see how well your product data is positioned to be found and chosen across Google and AI shopping.
Get Your Free Product Feed Audit
Knowing how to optimize your product feed is one thing. Doing it across thousands or millions of SKUs is another.
SEO and AEO teams may know they need to improve feed language, fill attribute gaps, and make products more relevant to how shoppers search. But manually identifying and fixing those opportunities at catalog scale simply isn’t practical.
That’s where seoClarity’s Product Feed Optimizer comes in.
It helps bridge the gap between insight and execution by identifying where your product data falls short and enriching feeds with the attributes and language shoppers actually use.
Because in AI shopping, having an approved feed doesn’t mean your products will be chosen. Product Feed Optimizer helps you move from eligible to chosen at scale.
Since opening its platform to all merchants, Google has faced challenges with scams and misinformation.
However, its ongoing enhancements, such as rigorous verification processes, aim to build a more trusted shopping ecosystem.
Two common issues highlight the need for strict alignment:
To combat these issues, Google crawls every product page submitted in the feed to verify that:
This verification process forms what can be called Google’s internal trust score for your feed. As such, the information in your Google Shopping feed should match what appears on your product detail pages, including structured data and even the shopping cart.
Misalignment can harm your visibility and trustworthiness in Google Organic Shopping.
So how does misalignment happen?
Misalignment can occur when updates to feed content, such as titles or descriptions, aren't reflected on corresponding product pages. Aligning teams and workflows across SEO and paid search can mitigate these discrepancies.
We've heard from real-life client experiences of titles or descriptions being modified in the feed file to add keywords, but without a workflow in place to update the website.
This creates discrepancies between the feed and the website, reducing Google’s trust in your feed and leading to inaccuracies in AI responses about products.
To optimize for Google Organic Shopping, ensure absolute consistency between your shopping feed, product detail pages, and structured data. In addition, avoid altering feed content (e.g., titles or descriptions) without reflecting those changes on your website.
Advanced feed management uses supplemental feeds via the Content API to execute dynamic multi-account edits and automated attribute rules within Google Merchant Center. Incorporating automated quality checks and demand-matched language enrichment ensures continuous catalog compliance and higher AI selection rates.
If you manage a multi-client Merchant Center account, you can enhance your primary feed with additional data sources to make changes to multiple accounts at the same time.
Supplemental product data sources allow you to apply your attribute rules and supplemental Content API feeds to multiple sub-accounts at the same time. This is done with the Content API.
To add a supplemental data source, navigate to “Data Sources” in Merchant Center settings and click “Supplemental Data Sources.”
To streamline your feed management, use attribute rules. This lets you match product data to Google’s requirements.
To add attribute rules, you’ll need to enable the “Advances Data Source Management” add-on within the Merchant Center.
From here, you’ll be able to add or edit attribute details before you save them. Once they’re saved in a draft, you can test them to make sure they work before you push them live.
By involving organic teams in feed optimization, businesses can maximize their visibility in both Google Shopping and AI shopping and leverage both paid and organic opportunities.
That’s why we've outlined a five-step strategy for clients:
We have the only complete AEO and SEO platform to help clients with all of these 5 steps, from tracking and reporting to monitoring and execution.
For more detailed insights on how to carry out this 5-step strategy and how seoClarity can help you achieve success within Google Shopping, download the playbook by filling out the form below and get a free custom report on how your site is performing in Google Shopping.
Optimizing your product feed is no longer just about Google Shopping. As product discovery expands into AI shopping experiences, your feed plays a growing role in whether your products are found, recommended, and ultimately chosen.
By making product feed optimization part of your SEO and AEO strategy, you can increase visibility across traditional and AI search, and demonstrate how organic search contributes directly to traffic, sales, and your company’s bottom line.
seoClarity’s Product Feed Optimizer helps you optimize and enrich product data at scale, so more of your products can be found and chosen across traditional and AI shopping experiences.