The GTIN is the barcode the manufacturer prints on the box. Google uses it to match your product with the same product sold by everyone else, which is how it knows what you are selling. Without it your product still appears, but it competes with far less information behind it.
What the policy actually says
«Products with missing or incorrect GTIN [gtin] attributes may have limited visibility.»
Official policy · quoted word for word, checked
against the source on 2026-09-20.
This one costs you visibility rather than blocking you.
How to fix it in Shopify
In Shopify, open the product and scroll to the Inventory section. The field is called "Barcode (ISBN, UPC, GTIN, etc.)".
Copy the number exactly as the manufacturer prints it, with no spaces or dashes.
For products sold in variants, the barcode belongs to each variant: two sizes of the same shirt have different GTINs.
If the product genuinely has no assigned GTIN, such as handmade or made-to-order items, leave the field empty. Google accepts that. What it does not accept is an invented number.
Check your whole store for this
Doing this by hand for one product is easy. Doing it for every product, and for the
store-level rules that suspend accounts, is not. Type your store address and see where you
stand, with the policy quoted next to each finding.
We only read what your store already publishes to any visitor.
No access, no passwords, nothing about your customers.