What changed
Google updated the Merchant Center product data spec for 2026 across three areas, each with its own enforcement calendar.
Video. A new optional video_link attribute accepts a URL pointing to a product video. Videos submitted this way become eligible to serve on June 30, 2026. On that same date, Google starts issuing quality and policy warnings for submitted videos, so the attribute goes live and gets policed simultaneously.
Images. The minimum resolution for image_link and additional_image_link is rising to 500x500 pixels for all product categories and all marketing methods. Merchant Center starts surfacing warnings for non-compliant images on April 14, 2026. Disapprovals don't begin until January 31, 2027, so there's a nine-month runway from warning to enforcement. Don't let that lull you into moving slow, large catalogs take time to audit and re-shoot.
Shipping attributes. Google added three product-level shipping controls: handling_cutoff_time (the daily order-processing deadline), minimum_order_value (minimum spend required to ship), and two new sub-attributes inside shipping, loyalty_program_label and loyalty_tier_label, so you can specify different shipping terms per loyalty tier at the individual product level.
Who it affects
Anyone running Google Shopping or Performance Max with a product feed, which is most mid-size and enterprise retailers. The image change is a catalog-hygiene issue that hits accounts with older SKUs or stock imagery hardest. The video change is a net-new opportunity that disproportionately rewards early movers. The shipping attributes matter most to retailers with loyalty programs or complex fulfillment rules that currently live only at the account level.
Why it matters
The mechanism behind the image change is straightforward: Google's auction factors in landing page and asset quality. A disapproved product image means that SKU stops serving entirely. For a catalog of 50,000 SKUs where even 5% are below 500x500, that's 2,500 products going dark on January 31, 2027 if you haven't touched them. The warning period starting April 14 is Google giving you a diagnostic tool, not a hall pass.
The video change is more interesting strategically. Product video on Shopping placements is a relatively uncrowded surface right now. Performance Max already pulls video assets from your asset group and your feed; video_link creates a direct, product-specific video path into that system. Retailers who populate it before June 30 get first-mover exposure on a surface where most competitors will have nothing. The risk is quality, Google begins policy enforcement on the same day as eligibility, so low-quality or policy-violating videos will generate warnings immediately.
The new shipping sub-attributes solve a real operational problem. Account-level shipping settings are blunt instruments. If your loyalty members get free two-day shipping on select SKUs but not others, that nuance was previously impossible to express at the product level. Now it is. For retailers with tiered loyalty programs, this is a chance to make the actual customer benefit visible in the product listing.
The play
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Image audit, now. Export your full feed and filter for image_link and additional_image_link where the image dimensions are below 500x500. Prioritize the top-revenue SKUs first. Track product disapproval rate in Merchant Center weekly; you want it at zero for your top 500 SKUs well before April 14.
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Populate video_link for hero SKUs before June 30. Start with 20 to 30 high-revenue products. Use existing PDP (product detail page) videos if you have them, you don't need new creative to start. Measure CTR on Shopping placements for video-equipped products versus matched non-video products over four weeks. A 10% CTR lift is a reasonable bar to decide whether to scale.
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Map loyalty shipping benefits to the new sub-attributes. If you run a loyalty program, audit which SKUs carry differentiated shipping terms and add loyalty_program_label and loyalty_tier_label accordingly. Then check whether cart abandonment rate shifts for those SKUs over 30 days, the hypothesis is that explicit per-product shipping clarity reduces friction at the decision point.
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Set handling_cutoff_time per SKU where fulfillment varies. If you have warehouses or suppliers with different cutoff times, account-level settings are probably wrong for a subset of your catalog. Fixing this at the product level can reduce late-shipment complaints and improve seller ratings, which feeds back into auction quality.
Watch-outs
The nine-month warning window before image disapprovals is long enough to forget about and then panic. Calendar a hard deadline of October 2026 to have all images resolved, that gives you buffer before January 31, 2027.
On video: Google enforces policy from day one of eligibility. If you submit product videos that include claims that violate Google's ad policies (exaggerated health claims, for example) you'll pick up warnings immediately. Review videos against Google's Shopping ads policies before uploading, not after.
For the shipping attributes, adding minimum_order_value at the product level can conflict with account-level settings. Check your account shipping configuration first to understand which takes precedence and whether the product-level override behaves as expected in your specific setup.
The WhyItWon angle
Each of these changes adds a new variable to what "winning creative" looks like in Shopping and Performance Max. Video-equipped products will serve differently than non-video ones. SKUs with loyalty shipping labels carry different context than those without. As the feed becomes richer and more product-specific, the question of which products, and which asset combinations, actually convert becomes harder to answer from first principles. WhyItWon reads your feed, your existing ads, and what's converting across your catalog to score which products and creative pairings are worth spending behind before you find out the hard way. When the feed spec expands, the scoring surface expands with it.
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