Stop Losing Sales to Feed Disapprovals: Catch Issues Before Google Does
Key Takeaways
- Product disapprovals cost you 24-72 hours in re-approval time and lost sales
- Common causes: missing GTINs, broken images, price mismatches, and short titles under 30 characters
- Feed Channel Analyzer provides a 0-100% health score before you submit to Google
- Two severity levels help you prioritize: Critical (will be rejected) vs Warning (poor performance)
- Create optimization rules to automatically fix issues like short titles across thousands of products
Every disapproved product is a missed sale. Every day your feed has issues is money left on the table. What if you could catch problems before Google's crawlers do?
If you've ever logged into Google Merchant Center to find a wave of red warnings, you know the sinking feeling. Products disapproved. Campaigns paused. Revenue dropping. The worst part? By the time you see it, the damage is already done.
The Real Cost of Feed Issues
Why Products Get Disapproved
Google's algorithms are getting stricter. What passed last month might fail today. The most common culprits?
Critical Issues
- Missing required attributes (GTIN, price, availability)
- Invalid or broken image URLs
- Price mismatches with landing page
- Policy violations
Performance Killers
- Titles under 30 characters
- Generic or duplicate descriptions
- Missing brand or MPN
- Uncategorized products
The tricky part? Google doesn't always tell you about problems immediately. A product might be "approved" but performing poorly because of weak data quality. You're paying for impressions on listings that don't convert.
The Reactive Trap
Most merchants operate in reactive mode:
- Upload feed
- Wait for Google to process
- Check Merchant Center days later
- Find disapprovals
- Scramble to fix
- Wait for re-approval
- Repeat
This cycle costs you time and money. By the time you notice a problem, you've already lost days of potential sales.
Quick tip: You can use our free product feed validator to check your feed for errors right now - no signup required.
"We had 200 products disapproved over a weekend because of a bulk price update error. By Monday, we'd lost an estimated $3,000 in sales."
- Common merchant experience
A Better Way: Proactive Feed Health Monitoring
What if you could see exactly what's wrong with your feed before you submit it? What if you knew which products were at risk of disapproval and which ones were underperforming?
That's exactly what Feed Channel Analyzer does.
Introducing Feed Channel Analyzer
Proactive feed health monitoring that catches issues before they cost you money.
Instant overview of feed quality
Critical vs Warning issues
See issues at product level
How Feed Channel Analyzer Works
1. Health Score at a Glance
Every feed channel gets a health score from 0-100%. This isn't just a vanity metric - it's calculated based on:
- Data completeness - Are all required fields populated?
- Data quality - Do titles meet length requirements? Are descriptions unique?
- Channel compliance - Does the feed meet Google/Facebook specific rules?
- Best practices - Is the feed optimized for performance?
2. Two Severity Levels
Not all issues are created equal. Feed Channel Analyzer distinguishes between:
These products will likely be disapproved by Google. Fix immediately.
- Missing required attributes
- Invalid image URLs
- Price format errors
- Empty titles or descriptions
Products may be approved but won't perform well. Optimize when possible.
- Short titles (<30 chars)
- Missing brand or identifiers
- Generic descriptions
- Missing optional attributes
3. Product-Level Drill-Down
See exactly which products have issues and what's wrong with each one. The Browse page lets you:
- Filter by health status - Focus on problematic products first
- Search by title or SKU - Find specific products quickly
- View issue details - See exactly what's wrong and how to fix it
- Track progress - Watch your health score improve as you fix issues
From Insights to Action
Knowing about problems is only half the battle. The real power comes from fixing them. That's where NextFeed's Optimizations feature shines.
Once you identify issues with Feed Channel Analyzer, you can create optimization rules to fix them automatically:
Example: Fix Short Titles
Problem: 150 products have titles under 30 characters
Solution: Create an optimization rule to prepend brand name and append color/size
Don't Wait for Disapprovals
Every day you spend with feed issues is revenue lost. Every product disapproval is a customer you didn't reach. The merchants who win are the ones who fix problems before they happen.
Feed Channel Analyzer puts you in control. Instead of reacting to Google's warnings, you're proactively improving your feed quality. Instead of scrambling to fix disapprovals, you're preventing them from happening in the first place.
Catch Issues Before They Cost You Sales
Start monitoring your feed health today with NextFeed's Feed Channel Analyzer.
Try NextFeed FreeGet Started
Feed Channel Analyzer is available now for all NextFeed users. To start analyzing your feeds:
- Navigate to your Feed Channels list
- Click Browse on any feed channel
- View your health score and issue breakdown
- Filter products by health status to find problems
- Create optimizations to fix issues automatically
Your feed health score updates with every feed build, so you can track improvements over time and ensure your products stay approved.