Map Google product categories

Give each group of products a Google product category once. Every feed in your store uses the same mapping.

Use this when: Merchant Center reports a missing or invalid category, or your products land in the wrong Shopping category.

1. Before you start
2. Map by collection or product type
3. Suggest categories with AI
4. Use the mapping in a feed
5. Limits

Before you start

• Sync your products from Shopify. Groups come from your synced product data.
• Groups are your Shopify categories, product types and collections. A product with no product type has no product type group.
• Shopify category groups start as Mapped, with the Google category Omega Feed matches to them. You can change them.

Map by collection or product type

1. Click Rules in the app menu, then click the Category mappings tab.
2. In Mapping order, drag Shopify category, Product type and Collection into the order you want. Each product gets the category of the first step it matches, from top to bottom.

3. Under If none match, click Set default category and choose a fallback category. Leave it empty to let the channel choose.
4. In the groups table, open a tab: Needs category, Shopify category, Product type or Collection.
5. Click the edit icon in a row's Google category column. Search by name or ID, or browse the tree, and pick a category.

6. To map many groups at once, check their rows. In the Set category for N groups bar, pick a category, or click Remove category.
7. Click Save in the save bar.

To leave a group without a category on purpose, open its picker and click Set empty. Omega Feed keeps it empty and does not fill it again.

The Needs category tab lists groups that have no category after your last save. It hides when every group is mapped.

How a product gets its category

Omega Feed checks these in order and uses the first one that gives a category:

1. A custom value you set on the product in this feed. See Edit one product.
2. A Set attribute rule for the Google category. See Rule-based mapping.
3. Your Mapping order.
4. The feed's own default, if set (see below).
5. The store default under If none match.
6. No category. The channel chooses one.

Examples

• Product type "T-shirt" → "Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Shirts & Tops". Product types match without regard to case or accents, so "t-shirt" joins the same group.
• A product in two mapped collections gets the deeper category. If both are equally deep, the older collection wins.
• You rename a collection: its mapping stays. You rename a product type: it becomes a new group with status Not set.

Suggest categories with AI

Omega Feed suggests a category for product type and collection groups that have none. A suggestion comes from the Shopify categories of the group's products, or from the group name.

1. On the Category mappings tab, find the bar "N groups have AI-suggested categories."
2. Click Use AI suggestions.

3. Review each group and its suggested category. Use Search groups to find one.
4. Check the groups you agree with, then click Apply, or click Apply all.

Suggestions you apply are saved at once. You don't need to click Save afterward.

The count covers the groups in the tab you have open. Collections that hold half of your store's products or more get no suggestion.

Use the mapping in a feed

1. Go to Feeds, open your feed, and click the Settings tab.
2. Under Google category, check that Google category source is Use your category mapping. Choose Leave blank - let the channel decide to send no category from this feed.

3. To change the mapping without leaving the feed, click Edit mapping. Saving in that window updates the mapping for all feeds right away.
4. To use a different fallback for this feed only, check Override default for this feed and pick a category.
5. Click Save.

Limits

• Category mapping is free on every plan.
• One mapping per store. It uses the Google product taxonomy and sends the category ID to every channel that has a Google category field.
• Saving does not resync. Each feed uses the new mapping at its next sync.
• If Google removes a category from its taxonomy, groups mapped to it go back to Not set.
• The groups table shows 50 rows per page.

For per-plan details, see Plan limits.

Related articles

• Customize product data in your feed
• Fix "Invalid product category" in Merchant Center
• Edit products

Need help? Chat with us from the app.

Updated on: 13/11/2026