Google's Merchant Center page says a low image quality product will continue to show, and the hard line is 500 by 500 pixels

Google’s help page for the Merchant Center “low image quality” issue says a product with a blurry image will continue to show in ads and free listings. The one hard line on that page is a pixel count with a date. Merchant Center is the Google tool where a retailer uploads its product data, called a feed. This is a desk read of two Google help pages and one trade report, and I tested no feed.

Google’s help page says every product image must be at least 500 x 500 pixels and that enforcement begins January 31, 2027.

What does Google’s low image quality page say today?

Google’s help page for the low image quality issue says the product “will continue to show in ads and free listings.”¹ The issue itself is defined as one or more images with “poor image quality (such as blurriness, pixelation, or low resolution).” The page still tells the merchant to improve the image, because “High image quality correlates strongly with user engagement and clicks.”¹

So the page reads as a call to fix a poor image and does not describe it as a reason a listing might not appear. The earlier wording, as a trade report quotes it, did (see the next section). The page does not say a low-quality image is fine.

What did an earlier version of Google’s low image quality page say?

An earlier version of the page said “As a result, this product may be prevented from showing in ads and free listings until the image quality improves,” according to Search Engine Roundtable, a search industry news site.² The report credits Hana Kobzova of PPC News Feed (PPC stands for pay-per-click) with spotting the change.

I could not confirm the old sentence myself. The report links an archived copy of the page on the Wayback Machine, and the archive refused my requests on October 12, 2026. That wording rests on the trade report alone.

When is the 500 by 500 pixel minimum enforced?

Google’s help page says enforcement of the minimum image size begins January 31, 2027. The page states the rule as “image size requirements of at least 500 x 500 pixels for all product images,” and says “Starting July 2026, you’ll receive warnings on images larger than the minimum requirements but smaller than 500 x 500.”¹

The page does not say what enforcement does to a product whose image falls under 500 by 500. The page names the date but no penalty, so any claim that those products get excluded goes beyond what Google wrote.

How does Google’s misrepresentation policy sort violations by consequence?

Misrepresentation is Google’s policy on misleading shoppers, and its help page sorts violations by what happens to the account. In the version I read on October 12, 2026, the page says accounts “will be suspended upon detection and without prior warning”³ for unacceptable business practices, coordinated deceptive practices and dishonest pricing. For unavailable offers, manipulated media and unreliable claims, the page says “A warning will be issued at least 7 days prior to any suspension of your account.”³

I include it because it is the same help center stating a consequence in checkable terms, a count of days.

Search Engine Roundtable reported on September 28, 2026 that Google’s Merchant Center policy pages were rewritten around account-level penalties, in a summary its author said he generated with Gemini.⁴ I read no earlier copy of this page, so I cannot say whether anything in it changed. I make no claim that Google tightened anything.

What can a script check in an image feed?

A script can check the pixel count on every image in a feed. Nothing in the page’s wording can be checked that way for “blurriness,” which is a call made by eye. My read is that Google swapped a judgment for a measurement, and put a date on the measurement. That reading is mine, because the page does not describe its own reasoning.

The table sorts each rule by how it is checked and what the page says happens. The “how it is checked” column is my sorting.

Rule	How it is checked	What the page says happens
Image quality (blurriness, pixelation, low resolution)	By eye	The product will continue to show, and the page calls the image an issue to fix
Image size under 500 x 500 pixels	By number	Google’s page says warnings begin in July 2026 and enforcement begins January 31, 2027, with no penalty named
Business practices, coordinated deception, dishonest pricing	By Google’s review of the account	Google’s page says the account is suspended on detection, without prior warning
Unavailable offers, manipulated media, unreliable claims	By Google’s review of the account	Google’s page says a warning comes at least seven days before any suspension

Rows one and two come from the low image quality page and rows three and four from the misrepresentation page.¹³ For the other Merchant Center rule that depends on a machine reading a copy of your data, see the earlier piece on price mismatches and automatic updates.