Short answer. Merchant Center reports “Invalid value [brand]” when the brand attribute holds a placeholder such as N/A, Generic or Unbranded, a URL, a description or a value over 70 characters. Enter the manufacturer’s name as it appears on the product page, or leave the field empty; for products with no brand and no GTIN, declare identifier_exists as false instead of inventing one.
| Shown in Merchant Center as | Invalid value [brand] |
|---|---|
| Attribute | brand |
| Effect | Limited performance — Treated as a missing brand |
| Where to find it | Products → Needs attention, then filter by this issue |
| Free check | Reported by the free feed check |
What Merchant Center means by “Invalid value [brand]”
The brand specification wants the product’s brand name, up to 70 characters, and Google’s data quality guidance warns specifically against placeholder values such as “N/A” or “Generic”. A value that is not a brand is reported through the Content API’s generic invalid_attribute_value as “Invalid value [brand]”, and the product is treated as having no brand, with the limited performance that brings.
The placeholders are the common case because a store system made brand a required field and someone typed the shortest thing that would save. The honest value for a product with no brand is an empty field.
Why it happens
- Placeholders: N/A, Generic, Unbranded, No brand, “-”, “.”.
- A URL or a category mapped into the brand column by mistake.
- A sentence: “Imported from Italy” or the product description’s first line.
- The shop’s own name on resold goods, which is not invalid in form but mis-describes the product and can be reported when Google knows the real brand.
- Over 70 characters, usually a brand plus a tagline.
How to fix it
In Shopify
Filter Needs attention to this issue, download the ids, and clear or correct Vendor on those products. Shopify defaults Vendor to the store name on new products, so a catalogue set up quickly often carries the shop’s name on everything; bulk edit the Vendor column with the real manufacturers.
In WooCommerce
In Products → Brands, delete placeholder terms (Generic, N/A) rather than renaming them, so the products lose the value; then assign real brands where they exist. Our free plugin leaves brand out when a product has no term, which is the correct state for unbranded goods.
In a CSV or XML feed
Replace every placeholder in brand with an empty cell and every mis-mapped value with the manufacturer’s name as shown on the product page. For rows with no brand and no GTIN, add identifier_exists set to false. Then re-fetch.
How long until Merchant Center clears it
Within 24–72 hours of the next fetch. Products with a real brand lose the warning; products with an empty brand and no declaration move to the missing-brand warning, which is what they had in truth all along.
What FeedRobin does about it
The free feed check counts products with no brand; it does not judge whether a present value is a real brand, and says so, because “Generic” is also the name of at least one real company. We never guess a brand from a title. For connected stores the brand is the store’s field, so emptying the placeholder there empties it in every channel’s feed on the next sync.
Questions merchants ask
Why is “Generic” invalid when it is true?
Because it is not a brand, and Google’s data quality guidance names it, with N/A, as a placeholder to avoid. A product with no brand should have an empty brand field, and, if it also has no GTIN, identifier_exists set to false.
Can the brand be my shop’s name?
Only for products you make or have made under your own label. For resold goods the brand is the manufacturer’s, and the shop name in the field mis-describes the product.
What about brands with symbols or long names?
Symbols the brand actually uses are fine; the limit is 70 characters. A sentence, a URL or a category name in the field is what fails.
Sources
- Brand [brand] — Google Merchant Center Help
- Fixing Merchant Center disapprovals for product data quality violations — Google Merchant Center Help
- Product issues (Content API for Shopping): the issue codes and the titles Merchant Center shows — Google Merchant Center Help