Google Merchant Center – How to tell / see if ads are showing up properly?
I currently have some products that look like they are approved, but when I search for them on google, I can’t find them in the shopping tab. There also seems to be no direct link to view the item as it would appear on google when accessing it through GMC?
The short answer is:
The discrepancy you are experiencing, where products are “Approved” in Google Merchant Center (GMC) but not appearing in Google Shopping search results, is common and often stems from issues outside of the basic approval status, such as campaign settings in Google Ads, low bids, or data synchronization delays.
The approval status merely confirms the product data meets the policy and specification requirements for the feed.
To definitively check a product’s true eligibility and visibility, you should leverage the Merchant API (specifically the productstatuses.get or productstatuses.list methods) for item-level diagnostics that go beyond the GMC interface.
This API provides the actual servability status and detailed, real-time item issues by destination, which is the most actionable source of truth for troubleshooting.
For campaign-level visibility, verify the Google Ads campaign is active, properly linked to GMC, and has a sufficient budget and competitive bid strategy.
The long answer is:
Your problem is a classic example of confusing “Product Status” with “Product Visibility” across the interconnected Google marketing ecosystem.
A product being “Approved” in Google Merchant Center simply means the submitted data feed complies with the technical specifications and shopping policies for the product itself, not that it is actively winning auctions or even eligible to be displayed in a live Google Ads Shopping campaign.
The missing direct link to view the item as it would appear confirms the gap in visibility troubleshooting within the standard GMC user interface.
To achieve a comprehensive, technical, and actionable solution, you must move beyond the interface and integrate with the Merchant API (also known as the Content API for Shopping).
The Merchant API’s productstatuses resource is specifically designed for this purpose.
Unlike the general product feed data, the productstatuses methods provide the critical, real-time item-level diagnostics that indicate why a product is not showing.
By using the productstatuses.get method for a specific product ID, you can retrieve the destinationStatuses and, most importantly, the itemIssues that may still be restricting visibility, even if the main status is “Approved.” Common issues can include errors in the price or availability data that Google’s automatic microdata check found on your landing page after the initial feed approval, a product being explicitly excluded in the Google Ads Shopping campaign’s product group settings, or a new account/product going through a longer, final eligibility review.
This API-centric approach is cost-effective because it automates granular diagnostics, drastically reducing the manual time spent toggling between GMC and Google Ads to hunt for a discrepancy.
It also opens the door to building a custom dashboard, possibly integrated with Looker Studio via the Looker Studio API for reporting, that combines Merchant API’s real-time product eligibility data with performance metrics from the Google Ads API and Google Analytics Data API for a unified, comprehensive view of product health and performance.
This holistic data synchronization ensures that your product visibility is managed proactively, addressing the root cause, which is often a low campaign bid, a narrow targeting setting in Google Ads, or a simple synchronization delay between the two platforms.
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