Data feed issue through merchant center (E-commerce/Performance Max)
I’m having an issue with google merchant center. Since we first created our ecom ads, we are using content API to input products into merchant center for google shopping. Randomly, I woke up in the morning to a “local feed” being added to merchant center as a data source. I do not understand why this is happening. It has happened multiple days in a row and I keep having to remove it. When the feed is added, it adds all of my products as duplicates. Anyone have this issue happen to them? All I need is my content API, why is google adding a local feed??
The short answer is:
The unauthorized “local feed” is likely being created by an automatic feed feature in Google Merchant Center, often a setting like “Automated Feeds” or “Website-reported autofeeds” which leverages data found by Google’s crawl and often integrates with local inventory programs if you have a Google Business Profile.
This feature can conflict with your manually managed product data submitted via the Content API for Shopping (or Merchant API, the latest version), leading to duplicate products, as you’re submitting products twice under different feed sources.
To stop this, you must explicitly locate and disable any automatic or supplemental feed settings within your Merchant Center account settings, ensuring that your Content API remains the sole primary data source for product submission, which is the most reliable and cost-effective method for frequently changing e-commerce inventory.
The long answer is:
Your issue is a classic conflict arising from using two distinct product data ingestion methods in Google Merchant Center for the same products – a programmatic method (the Content API for Shopping) and an automated-discovery method (the “local feed”).
The Content API, or its current iteration, the Merchant API, is the correct, highly flexible, and cost-effective solution for a dynamic e-commerce environment, as it allows for near real-time, incremental product updates (price, availability, etc.) without having to resubmit an entire feed file daily, reducing latency and API call consumption compared to constantly sending full feed updates.
The Content API’s products service allows you to insert and manage your product data directly.
The rogue “local feed” is a symptom of Google trying to be helpful by automatically discovering product data from your website, potentially as a default setting or through an accidental opt-in to a program like Local Inventory Ads or Free Local Listings, which often relies on a “Website-reported autofeed” or similar crawl-based process, sometimes using a Google Tag Manager JavaScript tag on your site.
When both the API and this automatic feed are enabled, they both attempt to create product listings using the same product identifiers, which results in the duplicate products you observe.
To resolve this and prevent future occurrences, you must navigate to the Data Sources or Feeds section in your Merchant Center settings and meticulously review all active feeds.
You need to delete the automatically generated local feed and, critically, find the setting that enables the automatic addition of items – it might be under “Data sources” or a “Program” setting – and switch it off permanently.
For maintaining data accuracy and efficiency, the Content API is superior because you maintain complete control over the product attributes and submission timing, which is vital for Performance Max campaign accuracy, making the investment in its integration a long-term cost-saver by minimizing manual clean-up and reducing ad wastage from duplicate or out-of-stock listings.
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