Merchant Center product status: approved, limited, not approved or under review — what each means
Merchant Center gives every product a status, and two of them cause most of the questions: Limited (“it’s approved — so why isn’t it showing everywhere?”) and Not approved. Here’s what each status means in Google’s own terms, and where to look next.
The statuses
| Status | What Google says it means |
|---|---|
| Approved | Google has finished reviewing the product, and it’s now showing on Google. |
| Limited | The product is showing on Google, but only in some instances — or not all of its data may be shown. |
| Not approved | The product can’t be shown on Google. |
| Under review | Google is reviewing the product for issues — for example, an image that hasn’t been crawled yet. |
| Processing | Google is processing updates to the product, which can take up to 15 minutes. |
“Disapproved” is the older word sellers still search for; Merchant Center now shows Not approved.
Why a product is “Limited”
Google says Limited can mean the product is eligible in some countries but not others, or isn’t showing for some marketing methods (for example free listings but not ads). It can also mean some of the product’s data isn’t shown.
Common causes are missing or invalid details that don’t block the product entirely — for example a missing GTIN for a product that has one. Open the Needs attention tab to see the specific issues on that product.
Why a product is “Not approved”
Google groups the reasons into two kinds:
- Policy disapprovals — the product or its landing page breaks a Shopping policy.
- Data quality disapprovals — the product data is wrong or doesn’t match the website, such as a price or availability mismatch (see Merchant Center price mismatch), an invalid GTIN (see Merchant Center missing GTIN) or an image with promotional overlays (see Merchant Center image requirements).
Select Fix errors, or open the Needs attention tab, to see the exact issue. Our free Merchant Center disapproval checker walks through the most common data-quality causes in order.
“Under review” for a long time
Products are reviewed when they’re new or changed. If many products stay under review, check that Google can reach your images and landing pages — and that your account itself doesn’t have an issue. If the whole account is suspended, see Merchant Center suspended for misrepresentation or No products on website.
After fixing product data, give Google time to re-process it before resubmitting again and again. Repeated changes just restart processing.
If the whole store is affected, check website verification and account suspension. Uploading your own feed? See the XML feed example.
Disapproved for the title? See Google Merchant Center title length.
Products with no shipping cost don’t show at all — see Merchant Center missing shipping costs.
If a product was disabled because Google couldn’t open its page, see Merchant Center product page unavailable.