Get a WooCommerce store into Google Shopping, Gemini and AI Mode — free listings, step by step

Before you start

• A live store with real product pages — price, stock and images visible without a login. Merchant Center checks the landing page against the feed.
• Shipping and returns pages published on the store. Google reads the returns page you link; the returns option you choose in Merchant Center has to match what it says.
• Your legal business address. Merchant Center asks for the registered address of the legal entity behind the store (for us, a Delaware LLC), not the warehouse or the founder’s home.
• A Google-format product feed at a public URL. The free connect form builds one from a WooCommerce or Shopify store URL, keyless, and hosts it at /feeds/<your-domain>.google.tsv with a daily refresh.
• Access to your DNS for Search Console verification. Ours lived at Hostinger (the host), not at the registrar.

Verify the domain in Google Search Console

Search Console proves you own the domain, gets product pages crawled, and lets Bing Webmaster Tools import everything in one click later.

1. Add a Domain property (not a URL-prefix property) for your bare domain.
2. Google gives you a TXT record. Add it at whoever hosts your DNS. If a managed WordPress host runs your nameservers, the record goes in their panel, not the registrar’s.
3. Click Verify. If it fails, wait a few minutes and retry rather than re-adding the record.
4. Open Sitemaps and submit the full URL: https://yourstore.com/sitemap.xml. For a Domain property you paste the complete URL, not a relative path.

On WooCommerce with the Slim SEO plugin, /sitemap.xml is generated automatically and includes a product sitemap. Yoast, Rank Math and WordPress core produce the equivalent; use whichever your site exposes.

Create the Merchant Center account

1. Open merchants.google.com signed in to the Google account that should own the store. If you have never had an account, the page says your account doesn’t have access — that is expected. Click Sign up for Merchant Center.
2. Business name: the store name shoppers see (ours was the brand, not the LLC).
3. Do you sell online? Yes. Do you have a physical shop? No, for a pure online store.
4. Registered business address: the legal entity’s registered address. This is also what Microsoft will later compare against, so use the same address everywhere.
5. Countries: select only the countries you ship to. We chose United States only. Adding a country you have no delivery rates for gets its products disapproved rather than listed.

Add products from a scheduled feed URL

1. In Products, choose Add products from a file, then Enter a link to your file.
2. Paste the public URL of your Google-format feed (TSV or CSV). Merchant Center fetches it on a schedule, every 24 hours, with no username or password. Keep the URL stable; if it changes, edit the source rather than adding a second one.
3. Give the feed a name and save. The first fetch runs immediately; later ones follow the schedule.

What the file needs: Google’s product data specification — at minimum a stable id, title, description, link, image_link, price with currency, availability, and brand plus identifier data (GTIN/MPN, or a flag that none exists) where Google requires it. One row per variant. If the feed you have was built for OpenAI’s spec, it is not the same file; the field names differ. Our connect form writes both from one catalog read.

Delivery settings: enter times manually

Merchant Center offers to estimate delivery from carrier data. For a store that makes to order (print-on-demand, custom goods, small batches) that estimate ignores production time, and a promised date you can’t meet is a fast way to lose a listing. Choose Enter specific delivery times manually and set real numbers. Ours:

• Order cut-off time: 14:00, time zone Eastern (match the time zone your fulfilment actually works in).
• Handling time: 2–5 business days, Monday to Friday.
• Transit time: 3–5 days.
• Delivery cost: flat rate $6.90, with free delivery on orders over $75.

Use your own rates, but keep them identical to what the store charges at checkout. Merchant Center compares the two and a mismatch is a disapproval reason.

Returns: link the policy and pick the matching option

Paste the URL of your returns page, then choose the returns statement that describes it. We selected “I accept returns for defective products only” because that is what our returns page says. Google checks the linked page against the option, so if your page offers 30-day returns for any reason, choose that instead — do not pick the option you wish were true. The returns window in your feed (if you include one) should agree with the page as well.

What you see when it works

With onboarding complete, Merchant Center shows “Your products can now show on Google”. That is the account being ready, not the products: every item enters Under review, which Google says can take up to about three business days. Come back after that and read the Products view; items with problems list the reason and the fix.

Nothing here requires Google Ads. Free listings are the default; you can add a campaign later if you want paid placement.

Mistakes we would avoid a second time

• Looking for the TXT record at the registrar when a hosting company manages the nameservers.
• Ticking extra target countries. Each needs its own delivery configuration or its products are disapproved.
• A returns option that doesn’t match the returns page. Fix one until they agree.
• A feed behind a login or a changing URL. The scheduled fetch is unauthenticated and needs the same URL every day.

Same feed, next surfaces

The Google-format file you just connected is accepted, in the same shape, by Microsoft Merchant Center, Meta Commerce Manager and Perplexity’s merchant program — and Microsoft can import your Google Merchant Center store directly, so the next twenty minutes are the highest-return work of the day: Microsoft Merchant Center in 20 minutes. The full map is in the one-day AI shopping surfaces checklist.