Instructions
Create a schedule for a new product data source
- In your Merchant Center account, select Settings
in the left navigation menu.
- Select Data sources.
- Under the "Product sources" tab, select Add product source.
- Choose Add products from a file option.
- While setting up a new product source, select Edit schedule and choose the desired frequency and timing from the drop-down menu. (Important: The URL of your file location must begin with either http://, https://, ftp://, or sftp://).
- If your file requires a username and password to access, enter the appropriate login information by clicking on the "Add authentication information" to allow Google to access your file.
- Select Save.
How to schedule a data source update
- In your Merchant Center account, select Settings
- Under the “Product sources” tab (or the “Supplemental sources” tab for supplemental feeds), select the file or Google Sheets data source you want to schedule.
- Select the Data source setup tab.
- Under “About this data source” (or “About this supplemental data source”), select the pencil icon
next to “Scheduled updates”.
- Note: Scheduled updates only appear for scheduled fetch and Google Sheets data sources. If you uploaded a file from your computer without providing a file URL, first add a file link (http://, https://, ftp://, or sftp://) so Merchant Center can fetch your file automatically.
- Choose your update frequency (Daily, Weekly, or Monthly) and delivery time, then select Save.
Why don't I find “Scheduled updates” or the “Data source setup” tab?
- Autofeeds (Products added automatically from your online store / “Found by Google”): Google automatically crawls your website to detect product updates. Autofeeds don’t have a “Data source setup” tab or a manual fetch schedule.
- API data sources: Feeds managed via the Merchant API update in real time when your integration sends API requests and don’t use scheduled fetches.
- Need updates more than once a day (for example, every 12 hours): Scheduled fetches support Daily, Weekly, or Monthly intervals. To update product data multiple times per day, select Update on the “Data source setup” tab to trigger an immediate fetch, upload a new file, or use the Merchant API.
Edit Schedule after you've made all desired updates to your product data. This ensures your latest information is reflected in the product data source Google receives. Avoid scheduling before making changes, as this can lead to delays in updates appearing in Google Merchant Center.
Requirements
- The size of the file you're scheduling must be less than 4 gigabytes (GB).
- Don't block the user-agents "Googlebot" and "AdsBot-Google" from the directory containing your product data source.
- Make sure that the product data source URL points directly to your product data source file in one of the supported file formats. Note that pointing to an HTML page of your website will cause the processing of your product data source to fail.
