Google Search Console and Merchant Listings
I have over 300 products, and only 30 of them are showing up in Google’s free listings.
Do you have any tips on how can I increase the number of my listings showing up?
No issues on the account, all information in the feed is provided. Site speed 90+, FCP and LCP below 1.5s according to pagespeed insights so core web vitals also passed.
I’ve tried re-indexing my product pages on search console, and the number of valid URLs for merchant listings on the search console has indeed increased – but it is decreasing every day by a few, i/e 108 good URLS – next day 102 good URLS – etc. The missing URLs don’t even go to poor or “need improvement” URLs, they just dissappear. It only increased in the search console, when I go to Merchant Center report for free listings, the products showing up are still around 30-35.
Also, I know that there are a bunch of other sellers competing with me, and by all means – I don’t mean I want to rank higher, I just want my products to be eligible to show up, to be visible in the free listings report, because there are no issues on any of my accounts, it says that I’m eligible everywhere, my site speed is great, conversion rate as well, no bad reviews, etc.
Any tips/ideas are much appreciated.
The short answer is:
The persistent instability and under-representation of your products in Google’s free listings, despite excellent site health, point toward a data synchronization and quality issue that a programmatic solution can solve.
The most robust fix is to implement a continuous, server-side data stream from your eCommerce system to Google Merchant Center using the Merchant API.
This API allows you to bypass the dependence on unreliable scheduled product data feeds and organic Google crawling for eligibility, instead providing real-time updates for critical attributes like price, availability, and detailed product data.
For the daily Search Console URL drop-off, this is often a sign of Google re-evaluating product markup and canonicalization; using the Merchant API in combination with a server-side tagging setup via Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) can reinforce the structured data and product events sent to Google Analytics 4 and, indirectly, to Google’s ranking systems for free listings eligibility, ensuring a stable and complete product catalog is always available.
The long answer is:
Your situation, where Google Search Console’s “valid URLs for merchant listings” increases after manual re-indexing only to immediately begin decreasing, is a classic sign of a fragmented or ephemeral product data signal, which manual re-indexing temporarily overrides but does not fundamentally fix.
The core problem is that your products’ eligibility for free listings is not solely dependent on page speed and technical SEO, but primarily on the consistency, accuracy, and richness of the product data Google receives, alongside a reliable inventory signal.
Relying only on the standard product data feed and Google’s organic crawling can lead to these daily fluctuations.
To gain control and ensure all 300+ products are consistently eligible, you must integrate the Merchant API (formerly Content API for Shopping) directly with your eCommerce backend.
This integration allows for immediate submission of product updates, such as changes in price or stock, using the products.insert or products.update methods, ensuring Google’s data is never stale and preventing the “price or availability mismatch” errors that frequently cause products to lose eligibility and visibility.
This real-time, API-driven data exchange is far more resilient than feed files.
Furthermore, to address the underlying visibility signal that dictates why only a fraction of eligible products appear, you should leverage server-side tracking.
By deploying a server-side GTM container hosted on GCP, you can implement the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to send highly enriched eCommerce purchase, view-item, and add-to-cart events to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) with 100% data fidelity, which you can then connect to Google Ads for better audience signaling and, indirectly, strengthen the trust signals Google uses to rank free listings.
This holistic, API-centric approach solves the cost-effectiveness problem because it replaces manual troubleshooting and potential feed management tool costs with a scalable, automated architecture that ensures maximum product eligibility and data quality, turning a sporadic 30-35 listings into a stable, highly-eligible 300+ product catalog.
For reporting, integrating the GA4 data via the Google Analytics Data API into Looker Studio or BigQuery provides a unified view of your organic and paid shopping performance, which is invaluable for long-term optimization beyond mere product eligibility.
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