Incorrect product identifier: how to fix it
What the catch-all "Incorrect product identifier" error means in Merchant Center and how to validate GTIN, MPN and brand together.
"Incorrect product identifier" is a broader flag for when your GTIN, MPN and brand combination fails validation against Google's catalogue, even if each field looks fine in isolation. Validate the whole set together rather than checking one attribute at a time.
What triggers it
This is Google's catch-all for identifier problems that don't fit neatly into a single-attribute error: the GTIN, MPN and brand are each present, but as a combination they don't check out against Google's product catalogue. It often means one attribute has been swapped between two similar products, or a variant's identifiers were partially updated while the rest were left pointing at the base product.
Because the individual fields can each look plausible on their own, this one is easy to miss by checking attributes one at a time. It only shows up when you check the set together against the real product. See GTIN and identifier disapprovals for how the specific identifier disapprovals map to fixes.
/tools validates GTIN, MPN and brand as a combined set during enrichment, not attribute by attribute, which is what catches this class of error before Google does.
Step by step
- Pull GTIN, MPN and brand for the affected products. Look at all three attributes together rather than checking each against a separate rule.
- Check the combination against the manufacturer's real data. The likely fault is that one field belongs to a different product or variant than the other two, a right MPN paired with a wrong GTIN, say.
- Correct whichever attribute doesn't fit the set. Fix the outlier so all three genuinely describe the same product, sourced from packaging or the manufacturer rather than guessed.
- Resubmit. Push the corrected feed. Clears once the identifier set passes Google's catalogue check as a whole.