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Google product reviews

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Giving your published reviews to Google Merchant Center as a product reviews file.

Sayproof prepares the reviews published in your channel’s market as a file in Google’s product reviews format. You add the file’s address to your own Google Merchant Center account; Google fetches the file from that address regularly and matches the reviews to your products in Merchant Center. Whether the ratings appear on Google is Google’s decision.

What you need

Section titled “What you need”
  • A Google Merchant Center account with your products uploaded.
  • At least 50 reviews, which Google asks for product ratings. The number counts the reviews that make it into the file; the panel shows it next to the threshold.
  • The Product page field mapped in your product source. Google needs the product page address for every review.
  • The GTIN (barcode) field, or the Manufacturer part number (MPN) and Brand fields, so the product matches the one on Google. The values should be the same as in the product file you upload to Merchant Center.

Creating the address

Section titled “Creating the address”

In the panel, Integration › Google product reviews has one card for each open channel. Only the Administrator role sees this tab.

  1. Press Create address on the channel’s card.
  2. Copy the address in the File address row.
  3. Add the address in Merchant Center (below).

The card also shows:

  • File fetches: how many times Google has fetched the file and when it last did.
  • Reviews in the file ( market): the number of reviews in the file and the 50 review threshold. Until the threshold is reached, it says how many more reviews are needed.
  • Reviewed products in the file and Products without a GTIN or an MPN with a brand: how many of the products in the file are hard for Google to match.
  • If some reviews can’t go into the file, their numbers with the reason, and a Go to product sources button.

Renew address creates a new address; the old one stops working at once and you need to enter the new one in Merchant Center. Close address closes the address; Google can no longer fetch the file. Creating, renewing and closing are recorded in Activity history.

Adding it in Merchant Center

Section titled “Adding it in Merchant Center”
  1. Open the product reviews section in Merchant Center and add a new product reviews file. Menu names can differ between Merchant Center interface versions.
  2. Choose scheduled fetch as the upload method.
  3. Paste the panel’s File address as the file address; you can enter a name such as reviews.xml as the file name.
  4. Choose the fetch frequency. Google wants the full file at least once a month; a daily fetch gets new reviews there sooner.

Once Google fetches the file, it validates it and shows any problems in Merchant Center. Every fetch carries all of the market’s reviews again; Google deletes a review that was in the previous file but is missing from the new one. A review taken off your site therefore leaves Google on the next fetch.

Which reviews go into the file

Section titled “Which reviews go into the file”

The file carries every review published in the channel’s market, whatever its rating or content. If you have more than one channel in the same market, each channel’s file carries the same reviews. Reviews carried over from another market or imported from elsewhere, and process reviews collected after a cancellation or return, stay out of the file because they are not product reviews.

Two kinds of review can’t go into the file because of Google’s required fields; the panel shows how many there are:

Case Reason What to do
The product has no product page address Google needs a product page address for every review Map the Product page field in your product source
The review is a rating only Google needs review text Nothing; a review without text stays out of the file

If a review’s text is empty but it has a title, the title is sent as the review text.

What the file contains

Section titled “What the file contains”

The file follows version 2.4 of Google’s product reviews format and is validated against the schema Google publishes.

Google field Content
review_id The review’s number in Sayproof
reviewer/name The name shown on the review; the first letter of every word followed by *** (A*** K***) when the writer asked to hide the name; “Anonymous” with is_anonymous="true" for a review without a name or an anonymised one
review_language The review’s language
review_timestamp When the review was sent
title, content The review’s title and text
review_url The product page address (type="group": the page has other reviews too)
ratings/overall The 1–5 rating
products/product Product page address, product name, GTIN, MPN, SKU (variant code) and brand
is_verified_purchase true if the review has proof of purchase
collection_method post_fulfillment for a review that came From an invitation email or From an in-store receipt, unsolicited for one written On the site; left out for an Entered by hand review

A shortened example of the file:

<feed xmlns:vc="http://www.w3.org/2007/XMLSchema-versioning" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://www.google.com/shopping/reviews/schema/product/2.4/product_reviews.xsd">
  <version>2.4</version>
  <publisher><name>Your Brand</name></publisher>
  <reviews>
    <review>
      <review_id>0c5b9f2e-6a1d-4f7b-9c1e-2b7f0f3a8d41</review_id>
      <reviewer><name>Jane D.</name></reviewer>
      <review_language>en</review_language>
      <review_timestamp>2026-10-02T09:15:00+00:00</review_timestamp>
      <content>True to size, arrived in two days.</content>
      <review_url type="group">https://yourbrand.com/product/running-shoe</review_url>
      <ratings><overall min="1" max="5">5</overall></ratings>
      <products>
        <product>
          <product_ids>
            <gtins><gtin>4006381333931</gtin></gtins>
            <skus><sku>RUN-42</sku></skus>
            <brands><brand>Your Brand</brand></brands>
          </product_ids>
          <product_name>Running shoe</product_name>
          <product_url>https://yourbrand.com/product/running-shoe</product_url>
        </product>
      </products>
      <is_verified_purchase>true</is_verified_purchase>
      <collection_method>post_fulfillment</collection_method>
    </review>
  </reviews>
</feed>

Product matching

Section titled “Product matching”

Google matches a review to the product in Merchant Center by GTIN first, otherwise by MPN with brand, SKU and product page address. These values come from your product source’s mapping (Products › Mapping):

  • GTIN (barcode): Spaces and hyphens are removed; values with 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits and a correct check digit are sent. An invalid GTIN is not sent.
  • Manufacturer part number (MPN) and Brand: an MPN only helps matching together with the brand.
  • SKU: the product’s variant code. Matching is easier when it is the same as the product ID in Merchant Center.

The Google Merchant XML and CSV presets map the gtin, mpn and brand fields automatically. The domain of the product page address should be the same as your site’s domain registered in Merchant Center.

Keeping the address safe

Section titled “Keeping the address safe”
  • The address contains a secret key and works without signing in; anyone with the address can open the file. Enter it only in Merchant Center; if you think someone else has it, use Renew address.
  • The file holds only what is already public on your site: the review, the name shown on it, the rating and the product details. It contains no email address or order number.
  • An address with a wrong key returns 404; a closed or renewed address returns 410. If the channel is closed or the service is closed, the address also returns 410.
  • The same address can be fetched at most 6 times a minute from the same IP address; beyond that it returns 429 rate_limited.
  • The answer is closed to search engines (X-Robots-Tag: noindex) and is not cached.