Check the status of your reviews
Once you’ve uploaded your reviews feed, it’s important to check the status of your reviews to ensure they’ve been processed correctly by Google.
To see the status of your reviews:
From your Google Merchant Center Next admin, on the left menu, scroll down to Reviews.
There, you’ll see a list of reviews and their processing statuses:
Status | What it means |
Ready to serve | Reviews are processed successfully and include all recommended identifiers |
Needs review | Reviews are processed but may be missing values or suggested unique identifiers |
Disapproved items | Reviews have been rejected and require correction or removal |
Check the errors and warnings
Fixing the errors and warnings for a review can change its status from Needs review to Ready to serve, making it eligible to appear on Google Shopping.
To see what issues you need to fix:
From your Google Merchant Center Next admin, on the left menu, scroll down to Reviews.
Click View what needs attention.
There, you’ll see a summary of errors and warnings, along with the number of affected reviews.
Fix warnings in Merchant Center
1. Missing or invalid product_id
1. Missing or invalid product_id
Issue:
You see the "Missing or invalid product_id" warning in your Google Merchant Center.
Why it happens:
Google requires globally unique product identifiers (GTIN, MPN + brand,...) to match reviews to the correct products on Google Shopping.
The "Missing or invalid product_id" warning typically indicates that the unique product identifiers are currently missing from either your product feed or review feed.
How to fix:
To fix the "Missing or invalid product_id" warning, ensure both your product feed and your review feed are properly aligned with unique identifiers.
To check your unique identifiers:
Unique product identifier | How to check it in your product feed | How to check it in your review feed |
GTIN |
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MPN |
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Brand names |
| We will automatically include the Brand names in the product review feed if they are available |
2. Unsupported comment format
2. Unsupported comment format
When a review includes a URL, Google will not accept it. For instance:
To determine which reviews are impacted, click on View examples. To resolve this issue, you can:
Ask the customer to update the review and remove the URL. You can do so by going to Manage Reviews > Reviews Dashboard, then clicking on the (...) option on the top right of the reviews and choosing Ask customer to update review.
You might also edit the reviews to remove the URL. However, you can only make small edits up to 30 characters and a notification email will be sent to reviewers, allowing them to approve or reject your proposed edit.
Note:
In the latest version of the feed, Judge.me added checks to exclude URL links from review content. Please update to the latest version if you see the notification below in your app settings.
3. Unsupported comment characters
3. Unsupported comment characters
Some reviews contain characters that aren't supported and appear as ��
You can identify which reviews are affected by clicking View examples. Then you can:
Ask the customer to update the review and remove the characters.
Edit the reviews to remove the characters. However, you can only make small edits up to 30 characters and a notification email will be sent to reviewers, allowing them to approve or reject your proposed edit.
4. Unnecessary tags
4. Unnecessary tags
Reviews may contain avoidable tags, such as excessive and repetitive punctuation. Common examples are redundant punctuation marks.
You can identify these instances by selecting View examples. Then you can:
Ask the customer to update the review and remove the characters.
Edit the reviews to remove the characters. However, you can only make small edits up to 30 characters and a notification email will be sent to reviewers, allowing them to approve or reject your proposed edit.
By addressing unnecessary tags, you enhance the quality and readability of your reviews, contributing to a smoother user experience.
Fix errors in Merchant Center
1. Low-quality reviews: irrelevant content
1. Low-quality reviews: irrelevant content
Some reviews might fail to meet Google's quality standards. Such reviews will be excluded from display as low-quality reviews. Irrelevant content is one of the most common reasons reviews are considered low-quality.
Option 1: Exclude reviews that focus on shipping, delivery, or irrelevant content
If your reviews predominantly focus on shipping, delivery, or irrelevant content, they are considered off-topic for Google Shopping. To manage this, exclude shop-level reviews with this focus by activating the following setting in Marketing and Social > Google and SEO > Google Shopping > Review content.
For other platforms
For other platforms
In your Judge.me admin go to Settings > Advanced > Google Product Review Feed > Review Feed Advanced Settings.
Option 2: Ask customers to update their reviews
In cases where customers submit reviews with irrelevant content, you can encourage customers to update their reviews via the Reviews dashboard.
For other platforms
For other platforms
2. Low-quality reviews: managing personal information and sensitive content
2. Low-quality reviews: managing personal information and sensitive content
Reviews containing Personal Identifiable Information (PII), such as phone numbers, email addresses, or URLs, are subject to disapproval within the reviews feed. To address this concern:
Go to the PII setting in Marketing and Social > Google and SEO > Google Shopping > Review content.
With PII active:
Reviews containing personal information will be added to the feed. However, sensitive information will be appropriately censored with "*".
With PII turned off:
All reviews featuring personal information will be entirely removed from the reviews feed.
Note:
In the latest version of the feed, Judge.me added checks to prevent full names, email addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information from being included in the feed. Please update to the latest version if you see the notification below in your app settings.
For other platforms
For other platforms
Use the PII setting found in Settings > Advanced > Google Product Review Feed > Review Feed Advanced Settings.
3. Low-quality reviews: Preventing duplicate content across feeds
3. Low-quality reviews: Preventing duplicate content across feeds
Each review should only appear once within one feed and should not be duplicated across feeds from different stores. Duplications may lead to Google blacklisting specific reviews or even entire feeds.
We strongly recommend to not include Product Group reviews in the feed. Navigate to Marketing and Social > Google and SEO > Google Shopping > Review content and select Don't include product groups reviews.
4. Addressing missing content
4. Addressing missing content
In situations where reviews from your customers lack content, they will not receive approval from Google. To handle this, you can encourage customers to update their reviews via the Reviews dashboard.
5. "Item Too Big" error
5. "Item Too Big" error
If you encounter the "Item too big" error, it's likely due to the following reasons:
Excessive Attributes in Reviews: Your reviews contain over 1000 attributes.
Content Size in Attributes: The content within an attribute within an item exceeds 10 KB.
For Judge.me reviews feed, this issue commonly arises when there are too many <product_ids> attributes, especially when:
Products Have Numerous Variants: All SKUs, GTINs, MPNs of a product (including its variants) are placed under one <product_ids> attribute. In such cases, consider removing weaker identifiers from the product feed.
Store Has Many Product Groups: If your store has numerous product groups, it's advisable to disable the Product group feature for the review feed. You can do this in Marketing and Social > Google and SEO > Google Shopping > Review content. When disabled, reviews will only display for the primary products in the feed, while still showing based on groups in the live store.
Remember that the Judge.me reviews feed updates daily. After making the necessary adjustments, there's no need to re-upload the reviews feed. The warnings and errors will gradually resolve within a few days, although it might take additional time for ratings to fully appear.
For other platforms
For other platforms
In your Judge.me, go to Settings > Advanced > Google Product Review Feed > Review Feed Advanced Settings.
