Your products are still in stock and the website works, but Google Merchant Center says they are expiring or have disappeared from the catalogue. Before changing your adverts, establish whether Google is receiving fresh product data.
A product being available on your website does not prove its Merchant Center record has been refreshed. The repair usually starts with the route supplying that record: a file, spreadsheet, ecommerce connection or custom integration. This guide helps you identify that route, correct the failure and check that the next automatic update works.
Understand what product expiry means
Google’s expiration date specification says products expire 30 days after their last refresh, with an exception for products added directly in Merchant Center, which do not expire. Resubmitting product data or scheduling regular uploads can refresh products. Google can also refresh them when it crawls and validates the website’s product information.
The optional expiration_date attribute can bring that deadline forward. A product expires on the submitted date or 30 days after its last refresh, whichever comes first. Setting a date months ahead therefore does not replace regular refreshes.
Start with the actual issue shown for an affected product. Expiry, a rejected product, an unavailable landing page and a campaign excluding an otherwise eligible product need different investigations. A fall in impressions alone does not establish an expiry problem.
Trace one affected product to its source
Choose an affected item and a comparable item that remains healthy. Record their IDs, exact variants, landing-page URLs, data sources and any update or expiry information shown. Include the time of your check so colleagues can compare the same evidence.
Open Settings, then Data sources. Google’s data source guidance explains that the Source column identifies the upload method. For a file-based primary source, open its Latest update tab and inspect the file issues; a downloadable report can identify affected rows.
Use the healthy item as a comparison. If both products use the same source but only one is stale, investigate whether the export omits that item. If a whole source is affected, prioritise the shared update process. These are diagnostic clues, not proof of the cause.
- Does the product exist in the current file or integration output?
- Does its ID match the existing Merchant Center item?
- Has Google received that item since the last known successful refresh?
- Is an unintended expiry date being submitted?
Ask whoever maintains the shop to follow the affected ID through the process. A connection marked as enabled, or a task marked as completed, is less useful than evidence that the intended product reached Google.
Repair the update route you actually use
A file uploaded from a computer
A manual upload can be mistaken for a continuing connection. Google’s file upload instructions confirm that this method does not automatically synchronise later changes. If nobody has submitted another file, editing the original spreadsheet on your computer will not update Merchant Center.
Generate a current, complete export using your established process. Check that it contains the affected items and accurate offers before uploading it. For ongoing management, decide whether a hosted file or supported shop integration would be easier to maintain than repeated manual submissions.
A file fetched from a website address
For a linked file, Google documents a default fetch every 24 hours and says the schedule can be adjusted. Check your source’s actual schedule. The address must point directly to the file and allow Google to retrieve it.
Ask your developer to test the saved address from outside the shop’s logged-in session. Does it return today’s product file, an old cached export, an error page or a login screen? Check both file generation and retrieval: successfully fetching an obsolete file is a different fault from failing to fetch anything.
If authentication is required, the person responsible should verify the saved connection configuration. If the file moved during a hosting change or rebuild, correct the supplying process and its saved address together.
A spreadsheet, shop app or custom integration
Identify the exact spreadsheet or integration serving the affected products. Compare its latest output with the product record in Merchant Center. For an app, check its processing errors and whether particular products have been excluded. For custom software, ask the maintainer for the responses to the affected product submissions.
Keep the investigation narrow: one known product, one attempted update and its result. That gives the provider something reproducible to investigate without disconnecting a working catalogue.
Check for an unintended product expiry date
If fresh submissions arrive but products still expire, inspect expiration_date in the supplying data. A date left over from a seasonal range or copied into an export rule could be deliberately ending visibility.
Correct an unintended date where it originates. For products that genuinely should stop showing, retain the intended deadline and check its time zone. Google recommends including both a time and time zone; without them, its default is midnight UTC.
Do not remove all expiry dates indiscriminately. First separate products you still want to advertise from ranges the business intended to retire. Then check that the next export preserves that distinction.
For older integrations, check the API in use
There is a specific current check for custom connections. As verified on 6 November 2026, Google’s Content API sunset guidance confirms its 18 August 2026 sunset and intermittent HTTP 410 Gone failures from 1 September for projects without an active extension.
This does not mean every connection stopped on 18 August. Google’s current timetable places full decommissioning in early 2027, subject to revision. A successful retry does not establish that an old integration is dependable.
For custom software, ask the maintainer to confirm migration to Merchant API and inspect submission failures. For third-party ecommerce platforms, Google says the platform partner manages migration. Raise a reproducible sync fault with that provider before commissioning a separate migration.
Do not rely on automatic corrections to replace submissions
Automatic product updates can make a broken supply route harder to recognise because some visible values may remain accurate. Google’s automation guidance covers corrections to price, sale price, availability and condition, and explicitly says these automations do not replace regular product-data updates.
Keep website data accurate, but verify the submitting process separately. If products return with wrong prices or availability after a refresh, use our guide to Merchant Center price and availability mismatches to investigate that separate problem.
Verify recovery without rebuilding the catalogue
Repair the existing source where possible and retain stable product IDs. Google’s product ID requirements say not to change an assigned ID because it identifies the product and connects its performance history. Creating replacement IDs is a poor shortcut for a refresh fault.
Use this practical acceptance check with your shop manager, developer or feed provider:
- Confirm the intended products are present in the corrected source with their existing IDs.
- Run the supported refresh or submission and inspect errors.
- Check the affected product records for fresh data and their current status.
- Inspect representative variants and products from other affected sections.
- Wait for the next scheduled cycle and confirm it works without manual intervention.
Keep catalogue recovery separate from advertising performance. Once the expiry issue is resolved, check eligibility and campaign inclusion before assessing impressions, clicks or sales. A refreshed record alone does not guarantee that Google will show the product.
Assign someone to monitor the update route and investigate failures before another expiry warning. Choose an update frequency that reflects how often your offers change; the expiry limit is not a sensible target for a shop changing prices or stock throughout the week.
If products keep expiring, talk to BuzzBoost about the failing product update. Tell us your shop platform, how products reach Merchant Center and which items are affected. We can help identify where the handover needs attention.
Featured image: AI-generated editorial artwork, not a photograph of a real BuzzBoost office, client or result.
