Google’s Merchant Center Help page for the low image quality issue now tells merchants that affected products will continue to show in ads and free listings.
The page, titled “How to fix: Low image quality [image_link],” describes the issue as one or more product images with “poor image quality (such as blurriness, pixelation, or low resolution).” A note under that line says “Your product will continue to show in ads and free listings.”
The page then ties image quality to results. Google writes that “High image quality correlates strongly with user engagement and clicks,” and says better images “may increase performance of your ads and free listings,” without giving a figure for the effect or a threshold that separates acceptable images from poor ones.
The fix steps run inside Merchant Center. Merchants open Products, select the Needs attention tab, filter by the issue title, and edit each product. For large catalogs, Google points to a CSV export of affected products that can be checked against the uploaded product data and re-uploaded once corrected.
Why it matters
The same page carries a separate size rule that has not softened. Google says new product images must be at least 500 x 500 pixels, with enforcement beginning Jan. 31, 2027. Since July 2026, merchants have received warnings on images that clear the old minimum but fall below 500 x 500.
That leaves two different consequences on one page: a blurry image that is large enough keeps its eligibility, while an image under 500 x 500 pixels will be rejected from January. Eligibility questions and performance questions now need separate owners in a feed team.
Because Google publishes no performance figure, the only way to size the effect is a split test of new images against old ones inside the same product group. Our recent coverage of Google ad-product documentation includes automated promotions listed as an account-level asset and the close of the September spam update.
Source: Google Merchant Center Help, “How to fix: Low image quality [image_link]”
