Image too small for upcoming enforcement: what the Merchant Center warning means

The quotes and rules below come from Google’s Merchant Center help, read on 20 October 2026: How to fix: Image too small, Image link, Additional image link and the product data specification update 2026.

Where you see them

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.

Both are warnings, not disapprovals: until 31 January 2027 the product keeps showing in Shopping ads and free listings. Google’s help gives two start dates for them, 14 April 2026 on the specification page and July 2026 on the issue page.

Image too small for upcoming enforcement

The image is larger than today’s minimum, 100 × 100 px or 250 × 250 px for apparel, but smaller than 500 × 500 px. Both sides count: an 800 × 450 px photo gets the warning, even though it is wide.

From 31 January 2027 the minimum is 500 × 500 px for every product, in every category. What happens then depends on the image:

• The main image (image_link): the product gets Image too small and is disapproved. It stops showing in Shopping ads and free listings. Under 100 × 100 px, or 250 × 250 px for apparel, that already happens today.
• Additional images (additional_image_link): the product is not disapproved, but an image under the minimum is not shown.
• An image Google has optimised: the product stays. That is the second warning.

One case starts earlier: YouTube Shopping ads need images of at least 500 × 500 px to serve on TV.

Image resolution optimizations applied

Google has enlarged a small image itself. Its specification page says these optimised images meet the new requirement and prevent the product from being disapproved “without any action from you”. The warning is there so that you can find them.

You do not have to do anything. If you would rather shoppers saw your own photo than Google’s enlargement, Google’s advice is to submit a new image larger than 500 × 500 px.

Google does not say which images it optimises: it speaks of “some images” and of doing it “when possible”. An image that shows Image too small for upcoming enforcement today may be optimised before 31 January, or it may not. Do not count on it.

Why a shop with large photos still gets the warning

Google’s own advice is to avoid “submitting thumbnails or scaling images”. In a WooCommerce shop a small image usually comes from one of these:

• The feed sends a smaller copy. WordPress keeps the file you uploaded and makes smaller copies of it, named after their size, such as shoe-300x300.jpg. Some feed plugins let you choose which size goes into the feed. If the image address your feed sends ends in a size like that, Google gets the copy, not the original. Set the feed to the full size.
• The product image is a copy itself. A thumbnail was uploaded or imported as an image of its own, while the full picture is still on the server.
• The photo was cropped in WordPress. The image editor saves the cropped version as a new, smaller file, and the original stays on the server.
• A variation or the gallery. The main image is fine, but a variation with an image of its own sends that one, and gallery images go to Google as additional images.

How to find them in WooCommerce

Merchant Center lists only what it has received. To look at the shop itself:

• Product Image Size Checker, a free plugin from the WordPress.org directory. It measures the main, variation and gallery images of every published product before anything goes to Google, and it says where a larger original is already on the server. It changes nothing in the shop. More about the plugin.
• Merchlint, the full catalogue audit from the same author, also free. Since version 0.3.9 it lists main and variation images under 500 × 500 px among its other checks: Photo too small for Google. The gallery it leaves to the plugin above.
• The store check, with nothing to install. It reads the main images of up to 150 products from the shop’s public catalogue and lists the ones under 500 × 500 px.
• One image at a time. In Media → Library click the image: the attachment details show its dimensions.
• The whole catalogue from the command line. The WP-CLI command on Google Merchant Center image size lists every product and variation whose own image is under 500 px on either side.

If your feed goes through Google for WooCommerce: its Product Feed screen, under Marketing → Google for WooCommerce, lists the issues Merchant Center reports. When at least one of them is an error, it lists only the errors (version 3.10.0). These two warnings can then be missing from WordPress while Merchant Center shows them.

How to clear them

Upload a photo of at least 500 × 500 px (Google recommends about 1500 × 1500 px) and set it as the Product image, as the variation’s image, or in the Product gallery in place of the small one. If the original in the shop is already large, set the feed to send the full size. Your feed plugin sends the change on its next sync, and it can take 24 to 72 hours to show under Needs attention.

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.