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Displaying product reviews on Google Shopping

Set up Judge.me’s Google Shopping integration step by step

Updated this week

Available on the Awesome plan

Want star ratings on Google Shopping listings? Try the Awesome plan free for 15 days to generate your Product Ratings feed and start the setup — so your reviews can show on Google Shopping once Google approves the feed.

Before you begin

1. Google Merchant Center

To display your Judge.me product reviews on Google Shopping, you'll need to first complete your Google Merchant Center setup. This is not handled by Judge.me and must be done separately.

To get started with Merchant Center:

  1. Sign up for Merchant Center.

  2. Upload a product feed to your Merchant Center:

2. Google Product Ratings

Google’s Product Ratings program lets you display product reviews on Google Shopping, in both paid ads and free listings.

For Google’s eligibility and content requirements, see Product Ratings policies.

Judge.me generates a Product Ratings feed that follows Google’s Product Ratings feed specifications and is designed to meet these requirements.

3. Google Store Ratings (or Seller Ratings)

According to Google's policies, store ratings can be collected from:

  • Google Customer Reviews

  • Supported review partners

  • Evaluation by Google and/or other evaluation partners

As we are not an authorized Google review partner, we do not support adding Store Ratings (also known as Seller Ratings or Business Reviews) to Google Shopping at this time. We are actively pursuing official partnership status with Google and will keep you informed of any developments.

How it works

At the moment, we're not a supported Google Review Partner. However, you can still display your product reviews in Google Shopping by manually submitting the feed to Google.

The entire process typically takes 2 to 6 weeks to complete.

Here's how it works:

  1. First, you'd need to upload your Product Ratings feed to Google Merchant Center for review. Google will evaluate the feed to ensure it meets their Product Ratings requirements before approving it.

  2. Once the feed is processed, check the diagnostics and feedback in Google Merchant Center. Address any common issues (such as missing attributes or policy-related warnings) to increase the number of reviews eligible for display.

  3. After approval, eligible product reviews from your feed will begin showing on Google Shopping. The timing may vary depending on Google’s processing.

  4. Your Product Ratings feed is refreshed daily, ensuring new reviews, updates, and changes are continuously sent to Google without any additional action required.

To learn more about which reviews are included or excluded in the Product Ratings feed, see Understanding the Product Ratings feed for Google Shopping.

Submit the Product Ratings feed to Google Shopping

Step 1: Sign up for Google Product Ratings

To sign up for Google's Product Ratings program:

  1. Go to the Product Ratings Interest Form.

  2. Fill out the form, answering each question as shown below.

  3. When finished, click Submit.

Questions in the Product Ratings Interest Form and how to reply to each question:

Questions

How to reply

Do you work with an approved third-party reviews aggregator?

  • Yes

  • Yes, but I’d like to submit the feed from a supported partner directly in Merchant Center myself

  • No

Select "No"

What types of products do you collect reviews for?

  • Services

  • Physical and/or digital products

  • Physical and/or digital products and services

Select "Physical and/or digital products" as Google currently doesn't support reviews of Services

Do you currently have more than 50 reviews?

  • No

  • Yes

Select "Yes"

Merchant name

Enter your Merchant name (found in the top right of your Merchant Center dashboard)

Merchant Center Account ID

Enter your Merchant Center Account ID (found in the top right of your Merchant Center dashboard)

Merchant homepage URL

Enter your store’s homepage URL, including https://

First name

Enter your first name

Last name

Enter your last name

End Customer Company Name

Enter your store name or registered business name

Email address

Enter your email address

Do you use a Comparison Shopping Service?

  • Yes

  • No

Select "No" unless you are based in the EU and use a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) provider

Step 2: Confirm that Judge.me is your aggregator

Once you've submitted the Product Ratings Interest Form, Google will send you a confirmation email with the following content:

"Your aggregator, 'Judge.me', isn’t part of the Product Ratings program yet, so they won’t be able to submit a direct feed for you. Instead, you’ll need to send a direct product ratings feed to Google Merchant Center.
​
Please let us know if you would like to send a direct Product Ratings feed by replying to this email."

To continue, you must reply to Google to confirm. You can say:

"Yes, I would like to proceed with sending a direct Product Ratings feed to Google Merchant Center. Please enable my account for this option".

Once Google approves your request:

  • Google will follow up with you via email.

  • From your Google Merchant Center Next admin, you will start seeing the Reviews tab in Products and store.

  • Your status may still appear as inactive until your review feed is successfully submitted and processed by Google.

Step 3: Create the Product Ratings feed

This step is Awesome-only: You’ll need the Awesome plan to generate the Google Product Ratings feed URL to submit to Merchant Center.


​Try Awesome free for 15 days to unlock it.

Your store could have 50+ reviews overall, but some of them may not count as verified reviews under Google’s requirements.

If you don't have enough qualified reviews to be included in the feed yet, the setting to generate a Product Ratings feed in Judge.me will be greyed out with the message:

"Google has strict guidelines for submitting reviews. Only brands with 50 or more reviews collected by your reviews aggregator can submit a Google Shopping feed. This setting will become available once you meet this criterion".

To check how many qualified reviews you have:

  1. From your Judge.me admin, go to Reviews.

  2. Click the Search and filter icon (🔍︎☰) on the right.

  3. Click Add filter + on the left and select Source.

  4. Click the checkboxes next to "Email", "Klaviyo", "Pushowl", "SMS", "Web", "QR Codes", "Shareable Link", "User Profile", "All Reviews Page", "Floating Tab", "Review Site".

Once you reach the threshold of 50+ qualified verified reviews, the setting to generate a Product Ratings feed will automatically become available in 24 hours.

Then, to get the XML reviews feed file as a URL to submit to Google:

  1. From your Judge.me admin, go to Settings > Google and SEO > Google Shopping.

  2. In the Google Product Review Feed section, select Generate the product review feed.

  3. Click Save.

Step 4: Add unique product identifiers

Google states that ratings and reviews are matched to products based on a number of factors, the most important being globally unique product identifiers that appear in both:

  • the Product Ratings feed, and

  • the Products feed (in Google Merchant Center).

We include the following product identifiers for each product in the Product Ratings feed to support this matching process:

We automatically include the following product identifiers for each product in the Product Ratings feed to support this matching process:

  • Product URL (<product_url>)

  • Product name (<product_name>)

  • Shopify product identifier (<skus>)

You can enhance the matching by adding the following product identifiers in the Product Ratings feed as well:

  • Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) (<gtins>)

  • Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs) (<mpns>) and Brand name (<brands>)

To learn more about the unique product identifiers above, see Understanding the Product Ratings feed for Google Shopping.

Note:

  • Even if reviews are correctly matched to products, Google will only display star ratings when it determines that the information is accurate and relevant to customers.

Step 5: Upload the feed to Google Merchant Center

To upload the Product Ratings feed to Google:

  • First, get your XML feed from Judge.me:

    1. From your Judge.me admin, go to Settings > Google and SEO > Google Shopping.

    2. In the Google Product Review Feed section, copy the XML URL.

  • Then, add the Product Ratings feed to Merchant Center Next:

    1. From your Google Merchant Center Next admin, on the left panel, scroll down to go to Reviews.

    2. In the Product reviews tab, click the Manage product review sources button.

    3. In the Product review sources tab, click Add product reviews.

    4. Select Enter a link to your file and paste in the feed URL you just copied.

    5. Under Edit schedule, keep the default: “Automatically updates every 24 hours at 12:00 AM”.

    6. Under Add authentication information, keep the default: “No username and password provided”.

    7. Click Continue.

Step 6: Follow up with Google

Once you've submitted the Product Ratings feed, Google will manually check and approve your feed in 2-4 weeks.

During this time, Google may reach out to request additional information.

Common questions include:

1. How do you differentiate between verified and non-verified buyers?

When reviewing your Product Ratings feed, Google might ask:

"I notice that reviews can be submitted by anyone on your website. Could you please elaborate on how you distinguish between reviewers who have made verified purchases and those who have not?"

A review is marked as Verified only when it can be automatically linked to a confirmed purchase. This includes reviews collected through our review request emails or other Judge.me review flows where the customer confirms their purchase. These reviews are matched against order data and displayed with a Verified badge.

Reviews that cannot be linked to a confirmed purchase remain unverified and are labeled as such.

For details on how verified reviews work and how they’re displayed, see Verified reviews.

2. What does the Product Ratings feed have no negative reviews?

Google may flag Product Ratings feeds that contain only high-rating reviews. To be approved, your feed should include a natural mix of ratings, including lower-star reviews when available. While this may feel restrictive, it is a requirement of Google’s review policies.

If you haven’t received any negative reviews yet, you’ll need to contact Google to explain that your store has not accumulated lower-star ratings at this time.

3. Why is the latest review in the feed too old?

When submitting the feed in a specific month, such as October, ensure that it encompasses reviews from that month or even late September. This practice guarantees that your reviews are updated and relevant to your users' experiences.

After approval: What to expect

Once your Product Ratings feed is approved, Google will send you a confirmation email with the following content:

"I am happy to inform you that the Google Product Ratings feed for the store... has been successfully integrated into our system. Attached are the screenshots of some of your reviews currently live online on Google Shopping pages".

At this point:

  • Your feed status should change to Live.

  • You can track the status of your reviews in the Reviews tab, including those that may not yet meet the criteria for Google Shopping.

  • If the information in your Products feed and Product Ratings feed aligns correctly, your reviews should start appearing in Google Shopping.

  • If some reviews aren’t eligible, check out our troubleshooting guide for tips on how to resolve common issues.

Note:

  • If you've resolved the issues but reviews are still not visible, we recommend reaching out to Google Shopping Support to identify any potential issues. Once you receive a response from Google, feel free to contact us—we’ll be happy to provide further guidance.

Troubleshoot

Google says my review partner needs to set up the feed

If Google says that your review partner or third-party app needs to set up and submit the feed for you, this usually means you've selected an option that doesn’t apply to Judge.me when filling in the Product Ratings Interest Form.

In Step 1: Sign up for Google Product Ratings, the form asks:

"Do you work with an approved third-party reviews aggregator?"

You can choose from three options:

  • "Yes"

  • "Yes, but I’d like to submit the feed from a supported partner directly in Merchant Center myself"

  • "No"

If you select "Yes", Google will respond with: "Please reach out to your partner and ask them to submit your feed directly to Google for you".

Since we are not yet an approved Google review partner, you must select “No”. That way, you’ll be able to download your feed from Judge.me and upload it directly to Google Merchant Center yourself.

I don't see the option to upload the review feed in Google Merchant

In Step 5: Upload the feed to Google Merchant Center, if you don't see the Reviews (or Product reviews) tab in your Google Merchant Center and there's no option to upload a review feed, it usually means either:

  1. You haven’t filled out the Product Ratings interest form.

  2. Or you have filled in the form but Google hasn't approved it.

Until Google approves your request to join the Product Ratings program, the Reviews tab will not appear in your Google Merchant Center.

To see the Reviews tab in Google Merchant Center and upload a review feed:

My feed link returns "Access denied"

If you've generated the reviews feed in Judge.me but the XML link returns "Access Denied" or "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below", this can happen if:

  • The feed setting wasn’t saved.

    1. From your Judge.me admin, go to Settings > Google and SEO > Google Shopping.

    2. In the Google Product Review Feed section, make sure "Generate the product review feed" is selected.

    3. Click Save.

  • Or the feed was just enabled and hasn’t updated yet — in this case, wait a few minutes and try again.

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Understanding the Product Ratings feed for Google Shopping
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