Google Merchant Center image size: at least 500 × 500 px from 31 January 2027

The rules below come from Google’s Merchant Center help, read on 15 October 2026. The WP-CLI command was run on WooCommerce 11.2.1.

What changes on 31 January 2027

Until that date the minimum is 100 × 100 px, and 250 × 250 px for apparel. From 31 January 2027 every product needs an image of at least 500 × 500 px. Both sides count: an 800 × 450 px banner-shaped photo fails, even though it is wide. The upper limits stay as they are, 64 megapixels and 16 MB per file (How to fix: Image too small, image requirements).

Merchant Center started warning about this in July 2026. A product whose image is above today’s minimum but below 500 × 500 px shows Image too small for upcoming enforcement under Needs attention. After 31 January the same product gets Image too small and is disapproved: it shows neither in Shopping ads nor in free listings. The exception is an image Google has enlarged itself, which it does for some and marks with Image resolution optimizations applied: that product stays. What the two warnings mean has the details.

The image that decides is the one the feed sends as image_link. Feed plugins take it from the product image, and a variation with an image of its own sends that one.

How to check it yourself

In Merchant Center. Google's help puts both warnings on the Needs attention tab under Products: select View history and look for the orange warnings on the right-hand side of the page, Image too small for upcoming enforcement and Image resolution optimizations applied. To download the products they concern, select View fix, then Download impacted products on the page that opens. Merchant Center knows only the products that have reached it, and only the images it received.

In WordPress, one image at a time. In Media → Library click the image: the attachment details show its size, for example “Dimensions: 800 by 800 pixels”.

With WP-CLI, the whole catalogue. This lists published products and variations whose own image is under 500 px on either side, with the ID, name and size:

wp eval 'foreach (get_posts(["post_type" => ["product", "product_variation"], "post_status" => "publish", "numberposts" => -1, "fields" => "ids"]) as $id) { $m = wp_get_attachment_metadata(get_post_thumbnail_id($id)); if (!empty($m["width"]) && ($m["width"] < 500 || $m["height"] < 500)) echo $id, "\t", get_the_title($id), "\t", $m["width"], " x ", $m["height"], "\n"; }'

It reads the size WordPress recorded when the file was uploaded and changes nothing. An image without a recorded size, such as an SVG, is skipped.

With a plugin, gallery included. The free Product Image Size Checker measures main, variation and gallery images, gives each product a verdict by how much work it is, and finds the larger original when it is already on the server. It changes nothing in the shop.

As part of a full catalogue audit. Since version 0.3.9 the free Merchlint reports main and variation images under 500 × 500 px next to its other checks: Photo too small for Google. It does not check the gallery.

Without installing anything. The store check reads the main images of your products from the public catalogue and lists the ones under 500 × 500 px. It does not download the files: the sizes come from the image data the catalogue already publishes. When that data does not settle the size, the image is not counted. Most often that is a square of exactly 500 × 500 px, which passes. The free scan covers up to 150 products and shows five examples.

How to fix it

Upload a larger photo and set it as the product image, or as the variation’s image on a variable product. Your feed plugin sends the new image on its next sync, and Google says changes can take 24 to 72 hours to show under Needs attention.

If your shop does not send products to Google, this deadline does not concern you.

Merchant Center disapproves products for other reasons too, and most of them start in a product field. Why products drop out of your shopping feed goes through them, with a query for each.