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Google Merchant Center no longer blocks products over low-quality images

Google has quietly changed its Merchant Center help page: products flagged for blurry, pixelated or low-resolution images now stay live in Shopping ads and free listings. The bigger deadline for online sellers is a 500 x 500 pixel minimum that starts on 31 January 2027.

By the Nexora Studio team · · 3 min read

Fashion designer photographing a dress on a mannequin with her smartphone
Photo: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Key takeaways

  • Products flagged for low image quality in Merchant Center now keep showing in Shopping ads and free listings.
  • It matters most to online stores that sell through Google Shopping or Performance Max with a product feed.
  • Fix flagged images anyway, and get every product image to at least 500 x 500 pixels before 31 January 2027.

What happened

Google has edited the Merchant Center help article that explains the "Low image quality" issue. The earlier version warned that affected products might be stopped from showing in ads and free listings until the images improved. The page now carries a plain note that the product will continue to show.

There was no blog post or announcement. Hana Kobzová of PPC News Feed spotted the edit, and Barry Schwartz reported it on Search Engine Roundtable on 12 October 2026.

What changed, and what did not

The "Low image quality" flag covers product photos that are blurry, pixelated or too low in resolution. It is now a performance warning rather than a reason to hide your listing. Google's help page says better image quality is linked with more engagement and clicks, so a flagged product may still get fewer clicks than it could.

Several image rules are unchanged and can still get a product disapproved:

  • No added text such as "Buy now", prices, shipping details or promotional words on the photo.
  • No stock photo watermarks, added logos or store names, borders, or barcodes and QR codes laid over the image.
  • A new minimum size of 500 x 500 pixels for all product images, enforced from 31 January 2027. Google recommends 1500 x 1500 pixels or larger.

The same help page also reminds advertisers that rules in India, the EU and New York require some ads with AI-generated or AI-edited images to carry a disclosure, and points to an AI label setting in Merchant Center and Google Ads.

Person photographing products on a table with a smartphone
Photo: Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Who it affects

Any business with a product feed in Google Merchant Center: Shopify and WooCommerce stores, D2C brands, and retailers running Shopping or Performance Max campaigns. Sellers with large catalogues that use supplier photos or old phone pictures are the most likely to carry this flag. The relief is real, since those products are no longer hidden. The risk is that they stay live with photos that lose the click to a competitor's sharper image.

Laptop on a desk with photo editing software open
Photo: Lalmch on Pixabay

What to do now

  1. In Merchant Center, open Products, then the Needs attention tab, and filter by "Low image quality". Download the list as a CSV if there are many.
  2. Replace the worst images first, starting with your best-selling and highest-spend products.
  3. Check sizes across the whole feed now. Anything under 500 x 500 pixels will be disapproved from 31 January 2027, which falls before many end-of-season sales.
  4. Remove price stickers, "sale" badges and watermarks from product photos; put offers in the feed or in promotions instead.
  5. If you used AI to create or edit product images, review whether a disclosure is needed and use the AI label setting where it applies.

A sharp product photo also needs a page that converts once someone clicks. Our landing page checklist covers that side.

Our take: what this means for Indian businesses

We would treat this as breathing room, not permission. Hiding listings over image quality was a blunt rule, so it is good to see products stay live. But Shopping is a visual shelf, and a blurry photo still loses to a clear one next to it.

This week we would:

  • Pull the "Low image quality" list and fix the top sellers first.
  • Run a size check on the whole feed so the January 2027 deadline is not a surprise.
  • Ignore any advice to stop caring about images just because the block is gone.

Sources

Where we can help

Want your product feed and Shopping campaigns checked before the January deadline? See our performance marketing services or tell us about your store.

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