Google Merchant Center No Longer Blocks Products With Low-Quality Images

October 13, 2026 · Daily Radar

"My image is blurry, my product won't go live anyway, so why bother." Most people who work with Merchant Center have thought this at least once. And they were right to think it: for years, Google's help page said exactly that: a product with a low-quality image could be kept out of ads and free listings until the image was fixed.

That sentence disappeared from the page around October 11-12, 2026. In its place: the product continues to show in ads and free listings. No announcement, no blog post. The first to notice the change was Hana Kobzová of PPC News Feed, and then Search Engine Roundtable and PPC Land ran the same story. In my view, that silence is the real story.

Quick answer: Google changed the help page for Merchant Center's "low image quality" warning: products with blurry, pixelated or low-resolution images now stay live in ads and free listings. This affects e-commerce and catalog businesses that run Google Shopping or Performance Max with Merchant Center. Fix your images anyway: products under 500 × 500 pixels will be disapproved starting January 31, 2027.

What happened?

On Google's help page titled "Low image quality [image_link]," the old wording said a product might not be shown in ads and free listings until its image quality improved. In the new version, the page says it directly: "Your product will continue to show in ads and free listings." [A] The same page adds that high image quality is strongly associated with user engagement and clicks.

The warning flag is still there. It keeps appearing in Merchant Center's "Needs attention" section, and the fix steps haven't changed: replace the image product by product or upload corrected data in bulk. So you can't say the warning is gone; only its penalty got lighter.

There's no date or changelog on the page. Exactly when the old wording was removed isn't clear; the earliest record available is PPC News Feed's story dated October 11. Google hasn't commented so far either. Whether this is a policy relaxation or the correction of an overstated document, I don't know, and I won't speculate.

Why does it matter?

• The type of risk changed. The risk used to be "the product quietly drops out." Now the risk is "the product is live but probably performing worse." Those are very different: one is a visible error, the other is a loss nobody notices. [C]
• The performance impact is unclear. The page says the image "can improve" performance, but it doesn't give numbers on the effect on ranking, auction competition or selection for free listings. [A]
• The 500 × 500 rule stands as is. The new image size requirement is at least 500 × 500 pixels for all product images; enforcement starts January 31, 2027, and products with smaller images are disapproved. Google's recommendation is 1500 × 1500 or larger. [A][C]
• Text overlays are still treated harshly. According to PPC News Feed, images with promotional text added, such as price, shipping or a call to action, remain a hard disapproval reason. [C]

By the way, Google has older figures, such as listings with multiple images averaging 76% more impressions (2023 data, Google's own claim); there's no independent verification, so be careful. [C]

What changes for your brand?

• Small catalog (50-200 products): No need to panic, but don't put it off. Opening and checking the images one by one will take you an afternoon, which is cheaper than a mass disapproval on January 31.
• Large catalog (thousands of products): Start with a size scan: list everything under 500 × 500. Quality issues come second, because they no longer drop the product. If you use images from the manufacturer as is, finding the small ones among them is your job.
• If an agency runs your ads: Don't let your agency tell you "we can ignore the quality warning now." The warning is still a signal for performance.
• If you never open Merchant Center: If your product data flows to Google from another platform (Shopify, Ticimax, WooCommerce), check whether that platform is shrinking images on your behalf. That's actually where the problem starts more often than not.

Here's my contrarian take: anyone who concludes from this news that "blurry images aren't a problem" has it backwards. People look at that image. Google may keep showing the product, but if the person about to click sees a pixelated box on the screen, they won't click.

The one thing to do today: In Merchant Center, open Products > Diagnostics, filter the "Image too small" and "Low image quality" warnings separately and note the number of products for each. You don't need to buy anything.

Today's Radar

Some of the rows below are confirmed only at the headline level, not in detail, so keep the difference between what's "known" and what's "interpretation" in mind.

Frequently asked questions

Will my products with blurry images show in ads now?

According to Google's current help page, yes: a low-quality image on its own doesn't drop a product from ads and free listings. But images under 500 × 500 pixels are a reason for disapproval starting January 31, 2027.

Does this change also apply to accounts in Turkey?

The help page isn't written separately by country, so it's expected to apply to accounts in Turkey as well. Still, what you see in the Diagnostics section of your own account is the real evidence.

Is upscaling images with AI a solution?

An upscaled image may pass the size requirement, but Google defines labeling expectations for AI-generated or AI-edited images. Re-exporting from the source file is always safer.

If you'd like to go through your product feed and your Merchant Center warnings together, take a look at our Google Ads service; we handle the image layout on your product pages on the web design and CRO side. For another change on the Google Ads side this week, see our October 12 post on automated promotions. To see the overall picture: START YOUR FREE ANALYSIS

Sources

• [A] Google Merchant Center Help: How to fix: Low image quality [image_link]
• [C] PPC News Feed, October 11, 2026: Google Merchant Center low image quality change
• [C] PPC Land, October 12, 2026: Google stops blocking low-quality product images from ads and free listings
• [C] Search Engine Roundtable: Google: Poor Image Quality Won't Stop Products From Showing In Search Or Ads
• [C] Search Engine Roundtable and PPC Land home pages, October 11-13, 2026 (Radar rows): seroundtable.com · ppc.land