brand is the manufacturer’s or label’s name, up to 70 characters, and Google uses it with the GTIN to match your product to its catalogue; it is required for new products with the exceptions Google’s page lists (films, books and musical recordings). A missing brand limits performance; a placeholder such as N/A or Generic is reported as an invalid value and treated as missing.
| Attribute | brand |
|---|---|
| Requirement | Required for all new products, except films, books and musical recording brands; recommended otherwise. |
| Format |
|
Google’s rules for brand
- Use the manufacturer’s brand for resold goods; your shop’s name only for goods you make.
- No placeholders: N/A, Generic, Unbranded, “-”.
- Where a GTIN is present, the brand must be the one the GTIN belongs to.
Common mistakes, and the error each one becomes
- Brand left empty because the store’s field was never filled. → Limited performance due to missing value [brand]
- “Generic” or “N/A” to satisfy a required field. → Invalid value [brand]
- Two spellings of one brand across rows sharing a GTIN. → Same GTIN but differing value [brand]
Where the value comes from on a connected store
| Shopify | The product’s Vendor field. |
|---|---|
| WooCommerce | WooCommerce’s Brands taxonomy, the common brand plugins’ taxonomies, or a pa_brand attribute, in that order; left out when none is set. |
The free feed check reads this attribute from any feed file and reports the defects above; every check is listed.
Questions merchants ask
Is my shop name the brand?
Only for products you make or have made under your own label. For resold goods it is the manufacturer’s name.
What if the product has no brand?
Leave the field empty. If it also has no GTIN, set identifier_exists to false rather than inventing either.
Does the brand have to match the GTIN?
Yes. A GTIN belongs to one brand’s product; a different brand on the same GTIN is reported as a conflicting value.
Is an empty brand safe on every channel?
No, and TikTok is where it bites. Google treats brand as required for new products but keeps serving the rest of your feed; TikTok lists brand among the nine fields a catalog product must have, and a row without one is rejected on import rather than merely weakened. The rule against placeholders still holds — TikTok asks for an accurate brand, not a filled field — so the fix is the real brand in your store, not your shop’s name on somebody else’s goods.
Sources
- Brand [brand] — Google Merchant Center Help
- Fixing Merchant Center disapprovals for product data quality violations — Google Merchant Center Help
- About unique product identifiers — Google Merchant Center Help
- TikTok: Catalog Product Parameters