Google product category on WooCommerce

Where the value actually lives

WooCommerce categories are your store’s navigation. The Google category is a different thing: a field your feed extension stores against each product, as meta, and writes into the feed as google_product_category. Different extensions use different meta keys, and that key is the column you need.

Because it is meta rather than a taxonomy term, the bulk editors that assign WooCommerce categories do not touch it. The export and import tools that include meta do.

The CSV round-trip

WooCommerce’s built-in product CSV exporter can include custom meta, and its importer can write it back. The dependable way to learn the right column name is empirical: set the Google category by hand on one product in your extension’s product screen, export that product with meta included, and read the Meta: column that now holds your value.

Then export all products the same way, fill that column for every row — this is the part the Bulk Mapper does, returning a category ID for each product with a confidence score — and import a file with only the identifier column and the meta column. Keeping other columns out means nothing else can be overwritten.

Every step, including how to verify the result before trusting it, is in bulk-assign Google product categories in WooCommerce.

Or skip the store entirely

If your extension makes meta awkward, a supplemental data source in Merchant Center carries categories without editing WooCommerce. It needs the product IDs exactly as your feed sends them.

Checking that the import took

Before trusting a full import, run it on a handful of products and look. Open two or three of them in your feed extension’s product screen and confirm the category shows there; then export those products again with meta included and compare the column with the file you imported. If the value is missing, the column name did not match the meta key exactly — the most common cause — and nothing else was changed.

After the extension next sends your feed, spot-check the same products in Merchant Center. A value that arrives but is not a real taxonomy entry is reported as an invalid category; the repair guide covers that case.

Keeping new products covered

A CSV round-trip fixes the catalog as it is today. Products added afterwards start without a Google category until someone sets one. Either set it by hand as each product is created, or repeat the round-trip for new products on a schedule that suits you — export only those added since the last run, map them, and import the same two columns.