How to Fix Price Mismatch Error in Google Merchant Center?

Tired of seeing the Google Merchant Center price mismatch error pop up again and again? You are definitely not alone. Many merchants face this issue, and they aren’t aware of its causes or how to resolve it. When they leave it unchecked, the same GMC error leads to product disapprovals or even worse: account suspensions — including cases like account suspended due to adult products.

So, how to deal with it?  

That’s what we will learn in this blog. 

In this guide, we will explain what the price mismatch error is, the common reasons why merchants face it, and how you can swiftly resolve it.

What is the Mismatched Product Price Error in Google Merchant Center? 

The price mismatch error occurs when Google finds a discrepancy between an item’s price in your product data feed and its price on your landing page or structured data markup. If the two don’t match exactly, Google will show the error ‘Mismatched Value (page crawl) [price]’ for that item in your Merchant Center account and may even disapprove it. 

This error arises when, after you submit your data feed with all essential attributes like price, brand, availability, etc., Googlebot visits your website and automatically crawls your product’s landing page, checks its structured data (if available), and even OpenGraph tags to check if the price on the page and other sources matches the price [price] attribute’s value in your feed. During this process, if Googlebot finds that the price on the landing page doesn’t match, it flags the product.

But you must note that Googlebot has the capability to automatically re-crawl the disapproved products again, either in a few hours or days, to check if the prices have been updated. If by then, let’s say you make the necessary changes and the price of disapproved products on your landing page is exactly the same as what you have shared with the price [price] attribute in your feed, Google will reapprove your products. 

Note:  1. Googlebot is a crawling software used by Google.  2. Crawling from Google’s side depends on your domain’s capacity. This simply means that if your website is already under a heavy load, then Google will crawl your pages slowly. This is to avoid any extra load on your server.

Why Does Google Disapprove Items with Price Mismatch Errors?

This is part of Google’s effort to ensure that merchants are transparent in their advertising efforts. Moreover, with this price consistency, Google tries to ensure that customers can have reliable and consistent shopping experiences. 

Common Reasons For Price Mismatch Error

Let’s now understand some of the common causes of this issue: 

1. JavaScript-Based Price Display: This mismatch is often caused by how your website displays the price, especially when rendered using JavaScript after the page has loaded.

While crawling your site, Googlebot can only read the price that appears immediately when the page loads. If your website shows the price using JavaScript after the page loads, the bot might miss it. And if Google can’t find or confirm the right price, it can trigger a price mismatch error.

2. Frequent Product Updates and Time Gaps: The price mismatch error can occur if you update the prices on your landing pages more frequently than your product data feed gets updated.

This is because there are always chances of time gaps between you updating your landing page prices and the price [price] attributes in your feed reflecting those changes. During this gap, Googlebot may spot the discrepancy and raise the issue.  

3. Issues with Structured Data Markup: Google uses structured data (microdata/JSON-LD) on your product pages to verify if those prices match with the values in your data feed. If your schema markup for price is incorrect or missing, then there is a chance that Googlebot reads the wrong price, which can trigger the price mismatch issue. 

4. Sale Price Misconfiguration: Another common pitfall is when you run a promotion on your website, but don’t reflect those pricing changes in your feed. 

If a product’s original price is $50, and during a sale, you are offering it for $40, Google expects you to highlight both prices in your feed. If those are missing, Google will still expect the $50 price to be the only price visible on your website and flag the sale price of $40. This will lead to the mismatch price error.

5. Minimum Order Quantity Pricing Issues: Many merchants also face the mismatch error because they have minimum order quantities, and rather than submitting the total price of the minimum purchase, they include the prices of single units in their feed. 

6. Price Range Issues: If on your landing page you are adding a price range for any item, then Google recommends you to add the lowest value of that range in the [price] attribute in your feed. Any other value may cause the price mismatch issue. 
7. Regional Prices: Price Mismatch error can also occur when the price that you submit in your data feed for a specific region doesn’t match the price which is being displayed on your landing page for the same region. 

For example, if your Google feed shows $10 for Region A and $15 for Region B, but your landing page displays $20 for both, Google sees this as a mismatch.

8. Dynamically Changing Prices Based on IPs: If you keep changing the prices of your products on landing pages based on the users’ location, IP addresses, browsers, devices, etc., then you are prone to the price mismatch error. Avoid that, and if you genuinely want to target a set of specific locations within a country, use Google’s add-on feature of regional availability and pricing.

How to Fix Price Mismatch Error in GMC? 

We will now cover the entire process of fixing the price mismatch error in GMC: 

Step 1: Identify the Products Affected by the Price Mismatch Error

• Open your GMC account. 
• Go to ‘Products’.

• Click on ‘Needs Attention’.

• Use the filter icon to segregate all products affected by the ‘Mismatched Value (page crawl) [price]’ error. 

• You will be able to view the item(s) for which Google believes there is a price discrepancy between your product data and landing page information. 

Step 2: Find the Source of the Issue

It’s important to understand what caused the price mismatch issue. Is it incorrect information on the website, feed, or structured data? 

• To identify that, click on any product’s title that is affected by this issue.

• Scroll down to the bottom and expand the ‘Additional Details’ of the product. We are interested in checking the ‘Raw data source attributes: Content API’, which is the primary source via which we uploaded our feed, and ‘Information found on your site.’ 

• Analyzing these two data points will help us understand where the price mismatch stems from. 

• In our case, the feed data says our item has an original price and a sale price. When merchants submit a sale price for any attribute, you must note that it overrides the original price. 

Thus, in our case, the valid price of the item is $250. However, information on our site suggests that the price of the item is $325. That’s why we are having a price mismatch issue. 

• Also, by reviewing the product information in the ‘Raw data sources attributes: Content API’ section, we can identify another issue: the [sale_price_effective_date] attribute is missing. We should add it because Google recommends that merchants also highlight the time period during which the sale is active.  

Step 3: Check the Landing Page 

To investigate the issue further, we will have to review the item’s landing page details as well. This is because there can be a chance that the landing page clearly highlights the sale price and original price, and the error is invalid. This means that it is a crawling error on Google’s side.   

• Click on the product’s landing page URL, which you can find at the top of the product details page. 

• Upon checking the landing page, we can spot the exact issue: 

Google expects merchants and advertisers to display the sale price or the lowest price prominently on their landing pages. In our case, Googlebot will crawl only the original price of the item as it is visible first, and not the sale price. Instead, the correct way to highlight prices on the landing page will be something like the image below, where the sale price appears first, and then the original price, which has been struck through. 

Step 4: Check Structured Product Data

Even though we have found what caused issues in our case, it is important to talk about structured product data. Oftentimes, the price mismatch error stems from incorrect structured data.

Google uses structured data to validate the pricing on your landing page. This data is embedded in your page’s HTML and helps Google to better understand your content. If your structured data is incorrect or incomplete, then Google will fail to verify the correct price even if it is visible properly on your landing page. 

We recommend you use the Rich Results Test to check if the price in your markup matches the price in your feed and page content. If it doesn’t, you must update your schema accordingly. Also, ensure that you are using a supported schema.org markup as per the requirements of Google Merchant Center. 

For our case, the structured data should look like this when the product has a sale price of $250 and the original price is $325: 

Step 5: Validate OpenGraph Tags 

If your structured data has issues, then Google will analyze OpenGraph (HTML metatags that define the structure of your website) tags. 

To view the OpenGraph tags of the product’s landing page: 

1. Right-click on the page and view its source. 
2. Once the source code opens, search for “Og: price”. 

It will appear just like we highlighted the yellow tag in the image above. 

Review it and ensure that it matches the price values that you have used in your data feed and landing page. 

Note: The OpenGraph tag image shared above is only for demonstration purposes.

Step 6: Fix the identified Google Merchant Center Price Mismatch Error

Once you have found out the source of the issue and performed all the checks we have shared above, you must fix it. Then use the same product upload method that you used originally for the first time to update product data in your Merchant Center feed. 

This means that if you used the ‘upload products via a file’ or ‘use a Google Sheet’ methods earlier to add items to GMC, then you must make the necessary price corrections directly in that file or sheet. Once you make the edits, Google will automatically fetch the updated values, and your product data will be in sync with your landing page during the next review cycle.

If you have a store on a platform like Shopify, you must update the price within your store. Then, using the sales channel app or a data feed tool like AdNabu, you can sync the changes to GMC.

In our case, we are facing the price mismatch error because our website is displaying the original and sale prices incorrectly. We will rectify that by ensuring that the sale price is visible prominently and that it is before the original price of the item. That will help us resolve the mismatched product price issue. 

Pro tip: Avoid using the GMC editor to update any product’s price attribute. This is because all edits made to any item with the editor will be permanent and can’t be undone later.

Step 7: Request a Review (Optional)

Once you make all changes and the price values of your feed, landing page, and structured data are in sync, you can request a review from Google’s side. 

However, remember that requesting the review is optional, and Googlebot keeps crawling landing pages regularly. So, there is a high chance that your issue will resolve itself in a few days without any manual intervention from your side. But if you want to speed up the review and reapproval process, you can request a review from Google’s side. 

Google will take up to 12 hours to review your site, feed data, etc. If it finds that the issue is resolved, your product will be reapproved. 

Even after Google’s review, if you are still facing the price mismatch issue, you can disagree with the issue and request a review. 

That’s it. By following the process above, you can manually make edits to the prices of individual items in Google Merchant Center.

Note: The process shared above is great for resolving price-mismatch errors for individual products and when you have a small inventory.  If you want to fix this issue for multiple products, you can download a CSV file of all the affected products. Based on that list, update the price [price] attribute in your feed and resubmit the data to the Merchant Center via the data source you used earlier.

Preventing Price Mismatch Errors 

Now, we will quickly look at some tips and solutions to the common problems we discussed above for the price mismatch error. These will help prevent the issue in the future: 

1. Use Automatic Product Updates Methods: Google recommends that you upload your products using a Google sheet template, Content API, or files that only need to be set up once. 

When using any of these automatic product update methods, you are allowing Google to fetch all product updates to GMC automatically. Therefore, you will not have to manually update your data in GMC frequently; thus, any type of price mismatch between your feed and landing page can easily be avoided.

Pro Tip: Even using automatic item updates with structured product data can help you prevent price-mismatch issues.

2. Add Sale Price Attributes: If you are running a sale, and your website displays the sale pricing as well, then Google requires you to add the sale price [sale_price] to your feed. You must also mention the time period during which this sale will be effective, using the sale_price_effective_date [sale_price_effective_data] attribute. Additionally, the time zone should be correct.   

3. Exclude free items from your feed: This is because Google doesn’t allow promotion of free products, and such items can cause mismatch or other issues. 

4. Align Product Details with Pricing: The product’s title, description, and image must always match the price listed in the feed. 

For example, if you are advertising a premium leather bag that has added features such as special stitching or extra compartments, then your product feed should reflect the total price of that version. If there’s a mismatch between what is shown and what is priced, Google may flag it as a pricing error. 

5. Landing Page and Feed’s Currency Should Match: In your feed, you must use the appropriate currency for the country you want to target. Moreover, the currency used on your landing page should match the currency that you submit with prices in your feed. 

6. Memberships and Discounts Should Be Available for All: For memberships, ensure that every user of your target country can purchase the product with the submitted price in your feed, without incurring any extra costs for memberships.  

For discounts, ensure that any user can purchase the product based on the discount price you submit in your feed. Additionally, discount prices should be displayed clearly on landing pages! 

7. Leverage data feed solutions: Using a data feed management software can also help prevent Google Merchant Center price mismatch errors. Such tools are very helpful when you want to integrate your store set up on third-party platforms like Shopify, Bigcommerce, etc., with GMC.

With that integration, your products and their attributes, such as price, availability, etc., are automatically synced between your store and Google. You don’t have to maintain separate data sets for Google. Moreover, if the data feed solutions support instant updates, then all edits that you make to your product data are also synced instantly to GMC. 

What Should You do if a Product has Handling Fees? 

Don’t add handling fees to the main price of products and display them on your site. Rather, list these additional costs with specific labels such as “shipping,” “delivery,” and “handling” on your website. 

In your feed, you must use the shipping attribute to highlight all the additional costs. 

How to Prevent Price Mismatch Error For Product Variants? 

Merchants often face the price-mismatch error when submitting their feeds with product variants. To avoid that situation: 

1. Ensure that the landing page of each variant only shows one price. Avoid showing multiple prices. 
2. Each variant in your data feed should have its URL. That URL should take a user to a page which has been pre-populated with that variant’s details.
3. Moreover, the variant page’s structured data should be supported and aligned with the Merchant Center schema. 
4. The variant page’s structured data should reflect the same price as the data feed and the default add-to-cart price. 
5. Also, all variants must be grouped under one schema-offer, linked to the feed’s item_group_id. Each variant must have a unique ID and URL, and its structured data must match exactly one item in the feed.
6. When users click “add to cart” without doing anything else, the cart price of the variant should match the landing page and feed price. 

Note: Other best practices that we discussed above for avoiding the price mismatch error in products, such as including sale price attributes, avoiding location-based pricing that changes dynamically, apply to variants as well.

Conclusion 

Ensure that your website, feed data, landing, and checkout pages, the price at which the customer can buy the product, the price in structured data and OpenGraph tags, and the price in live product listing ads, are all up-to-date and match each other!  

With this consistency across all visible touchpoints, you can easily avoid this issue and keep your product listings active, compliant, and performing well in Google Merchant Center.

FAQs

1. What steps should I take to resolve currency-related price mismatches? 

The price and currency in your feed should match your landing page’s price and currency. Moreover, the same currency should also reflect across your checkout pages. 

2. After fixing the price mismatch issue, how long will it take for Google to re-approve the products? 

If you request a review after changing the prices in your feed and landing pages, respectively, Google may take up to 12 hours to review your website. During this period, don’t request another review. 

If you don’t request a review, then at any later point of time, Google will crawl your website and check if you have resolved the issue. 

3. How can I prevent price mismatches with dynamic pricing? 

You can use scheduled uploads, add your products with Google Sheets, or a file so that Google can easily and automatically fetch product updates at regular intervals. 

Otherwise, you can also use a feed management software that allows you to accurately and instantly sync the changes that you make on your store with Google. 

4. What will happen if I don’t resolve the price mismatch error? 

Your products will stay disapproved, and you won’t be able to advertise them with Shopping or Local inventory ads, or any other form of marketing. 

Also, if Google repeatedly flags this issue, even your GMC account might get suspended. 

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