There have been a lot of recent data compliance checks being carried out within Google’s Merchant Centre in particular, so it comes as no surprise that rules on images are being enforced more rigorously as well.

At Feed Manager, we have written in the past about the importance of image information within feeds and something that Google and Amazon have in common are their strict rules on images, although their guidances differ on certain aspects.

Below are 5 principal reasons that can lead to products being disapproved for image quality reasons:

• Image size: Images cannot be too small or too big (minimum recommended size is 250 pixels along the shortest dimension of width or height).  Google’s image sizes can be smaller, but there are exceptions for Fashion products.
• Images on coloured backgrounds: make sure images are on a white background. Amazon in particular enforce this requirement.  Google quotes “light” or “grey” backgrounds
• Watermarks: don’t include copyright or proprietary marks on images
• Don’t include promotional messaging across image (eg special offers/limited offer messages)
• Don’t include banners/offer splashes across images

Note that Test My Feed allows you to test your images for compliance on size and background colours against Google, Amazon and E-Bay’s specified dimensions.

Another major reason leading to products being disapproved is the format of image names included in URLs.

• Don’t include special symbols such as copyright, trademark etc into the image name
• Don’t use foreign characters outside of the geography of the destination country
• Use underscores or dashes rather than spaces in image names

For advice on image and product URL naming see here and for more on image content violations here

These are the main problems that we see regularly result in product disapprovals. Rules across all shopping comparison engines are continuously tightening so avoiding poor practice is highly recommended.