How to connect Prom products to Google Merchant Center so new ones are added automatically
Prom.ua is the largest marketplace in Ukraine. To show Prom products in Google Shopping, you send them to Merchant Center through a feed. Here's how to do it right and where people go wrong: because of one setting, new products can stay out of Google for years. The same logic applies to Shopify, WooCommerce and any store with a feed.
What a feed is and why you need it
A feed is a file listing your products: title, price, image, availability, link. Prom generates it automatically, and Merchant Center fetches it by URL once a day. That's how products get into Google Shopping and into ads.
How to create a feed on Prom
- In your Prom account open the product export section.
- Choose the Google Merchant Center (XML) format and the language your products are written in.
- In product selection choose all groups and all items, published products only.
- Copy the feed URL. The URL, not a downloaded file: that way Google always sees current prices.
A manually uploaded file goes stale fast. The price on the site changes, Google still has the old one, and the product gets disapproved. A URL updates by itself.
How to add the feed to Merchant Center
- In Merchant Center open Products → Data sources and add a new source.
- Choose the file by URL option (scheduled fetch) and paste the Prom URL.
- Set the country of sale and the language, the same as in the feed.
- Set a daily fetch, for example at night, and run the first fetch manually.
A few minutes later the source shows the number of products. Google's review can take up to a few days.
The main mistake: a feed with selected products only
When creating an export on Prom you can pick specific products. The URL then keeps a fixed list, and new products never get into Google by themselves. The owner adds products to Prom, but they're missing from Google Shopping and the ads don't show them.
I recently saw this in a ventilation store: the feed had 28 products, and one new product had never reached Google since it was added. After switching to all groups and all items, Google immediately had 29 products, and new ones are now added automatically every night.
How to check yours: compare the number of products in Merchant Center with the number of published products in your store. If Google has fewer, you most likely have a feed with selected products.
What to check after connecting
- Brand. On Prom it comes from the Manufacturer field. If it's empty, Google gets no brand and the product performs worse.
- Prices and availability match the site.
- Images without text or watermarks.
- Fetch errors. Sometimes the store's server doesn't respond at night and the update fails. If the source shows an error, run a manual fetch.
If products are disapproved, the reasons are covered in "Products disapproved in Merchant Center: what to do".
I set up Google Shopping, Google Ads and SEO for online stores and small businesses. I write in plain language, no fluff. If something from this article doesn't work for you, message me and I'll help.
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