Google product category: 5,595 categories, and one for every shoe

The Google product category is the attribute that places a product in Google's fixed taxonomy of 5,595 categories. Google assigns one to every product automatically, so you set it only to correct a wrong match. Choose the most specific category for the product's main function, then carry whatever the taxonomy lacks in product type, title and attributes.

Google publishes its product taxonomy as a plain text file. The current version is dated 21 September 2021 and lists 5,595 categories under 21 top-level branches. We went through the whole thing, line by line, to answer the question retail teams ask most: where does this product go?

Here's what we found:

1. 1.Depth is uneven. The taxonomy goes seven levels deep to separate cardstock from scrapbooking paper. It goes two levels deep for shoes and stops there: every sandal, boot, slipper and sneaker shares the single category “Apparel & Accessories > Shoes”.
2. 2.The busiest apparel categories have nothing below them. Clothing has 128 subcategories, but Shirts & Tops, Dresses and Pants have none. There is no node for sweaters, polos, sweatshirts or jeans.
3. 3.One word can sit in two branches. A fashion tote and a reusable shopping tote live in different parts of the tree, and so do a hair dryer and a pet hair dryer.
4. 4.The category only gets you so far. Where the taxonomy stops early, you have to put the detail shoppers search for somewhere else in the record.

Google's taxonomy goes seven levels deep for paper and two for shoes

Google built the taxonomy to cover everything sold on Google Shopping, so it doesn't follow how any one retailer merchandises. Some branches go very deep and others stop early, and they rarely line up with what matters most in your catalog.

Number of subcategories below selected branches of Google's product taxonomy (version dated 21 September 2021).

The deepest paths in the file run seven levels, for example “Arts & Entertainment > Hobbies & Creative Arts > Arts & Crafts > Art & Crafting Materials > Art & Craft Paper > Cardstock & Scrapbooking Paper > Cardstock”. Meanwhile, a footwear retailer has to map every style it sells to the same two-level path. So you can choose the right Google product category and still have a product that's hard to find.

How to categorize 25 common products

Where common apparel, footwear and home products sit in Google's product taxonomy, and what has to carry the detail the category leaves out. Where Google has no exact node, the category shown is the closest parent: our recommendation, not Google's.

Eleven of these 25 products don't have an exact node. For those, the category only puts the product in the right part of the tree. The detail has to go in the fields below.

One word, two categories

Some product names fit two different branches. If you go by the word instead of what the product does, it can end up in the wrong one.

Product names that map to more than one branch of Google's taxonomy.

Google's own guidance answers this: pick the category that matches what the product is mainly used for. A canvas tote sold next to handbags and a canvas tote sold at a grocery checkout can be the same object and still belong in different categories.

Do you have to set the Google product category?

No. According to Google's Merchant Center help page, google_product_category is optional, because Google gives every product a category automatically. You only set it to fix a wrong match, using either the numeric ID or the full path (not both).

This matters most in categories with extra rules. Google says categories like Apparel & Accessories come with additional required fields. In Google's product data specification, color, size, gender and age group become required for apparel shown in the US, UK, Brazil, France, Germany and Japan. So if a shirt gets filed outside apparel, it can end up missing fields Google expects a shirt to have.

Product type carries what Google's taxonomy leaves out

Google product category uses Google's fixed tree. Product type is your own: a path written with “>” between levels, up to 750 characters, such as “Footwear > Sandals > Slide sandals”. Google only uses the first product type value to organize bidding and reporting in Shopping campaigns, so make that first value the one your paid search team bids on.

Here's how that splits for a pair of leather slide sandals:

How one product's category information divides across Google's fields.

For which attributes each surface reads, see our guide to product attributes. For why the shape of your own hierarchy decides which searches a product qualifies for, see product taxonomy.

ChatGPT reads the same category paths

Other platforms are starting to use the same format. OpenAI's product feed spec for ChatGPT asks for a product_category written “from broad to specific, separated by >”, and its own example is a Google taxonomy path. A clean Google mapping, extended one level where Google stops, is reusable across the surfaces that read a product feed, which is the core of product feed optimization.

What we don't know yet

Picking the right Google product category won't move a product up the results on its own. Google assigns a category either way, and the right one mostly decides which rules and comparisons apply. We haven't measured the revenue impact of changing categories alone, and we wouldn't trust anyone who claims to without a controlled test. In the catalogs we work with, the bigger gaps are usually in the fields around the category: product type, title and attributes.

What this means for your team

Google's taxonomy file is still dated 2021, and it still puts every shoe in one category. Your catalog probably knows a lot more about each product than the taxonomy can hold, and Google can only read what's written into a field. So the question is whether anyone on your team owns filling in those fields.

Lily Max fills in the attributes the taxonomy leaves out, for every surface that reads your product record, and tests each change against a control. Book a demo to see it in your catalog.