"Unable to check product pages" in Merchant Center: what it means and how to fix it

Not quite the wording you see? Compare the look-alike landing page messages.

What it usually looks like on a store

Most often a robots.txt rule that blocks Googlebot or Storebot-Google from /products/ or from the whole site, sometimes added by an SEO app or left over from staging.

What Google says

Google cannot crawl the landing page because robots.txt forbids its crawler or the page returns an HTTP error. The products stay disapproved until Google can crawl them. Google asks you to allow both Googlebot (landing pages) and Googlebot-Image (images) in robots.txt. If robots.txt changes block images, Google keeps showing products with previously approved images for up to 30 days.

This can happen if robots.txt forbids Google's crawler to download the landing page, or if the landing page returns an HTTP error when crawled.Google, How to fix: Unable to check product pages

ensure that your robots.txt file allows both user-agents 'Googlebot' (used for landing pages) and 'Googlebot-image' (used for images) to crawl your full site.Google, How to fix: Unable to check product pages

your products will continue to show on Google for up to 30 days using your previously approved images.Google, How to fix: Unable to do quality & policy checks on product pages

Also seen as: "Desktop page not crawlable due to robots.txt", "Unable to do quality & policy checks on product pages".

How to fix it

Based on Google's help pages, in plain language:

1. Edit robots.txt so Googlebot and Googlebot-image can crawl the full site (empty Disallow lines).
2. Test the configuration with the URL Inspection tool.
3. Re-upload product data or update via the Merchant API.

What to check on your website

These are the checks we run that relate to this issue. A problem in any of them can be enough on its own.

• Google's crawlers are allowed: Your robots.txt doesn't block Googlebot, Storebot-Google or AdsBot-Google from your homepage or product pages.
• Pages load for visitors: Your homepage and product pages answer with a working page (no errors, no password page, no login wall).

Requesting a review

Google says changes may take 24 to 72 hours to show on Needs attention, and errors should disappear within a couple of days; increasing Google's crawl rate can speed this up.

Questions

Sources

• support.google.com/merchants/answer/6098185
• support.google.com/merchants/answer/6098154

Checked against Google's help pages on 2026-10-08. Listvane is an independent tool made by Great Work LLC. It isn't affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Google. Google and Google Merchant Center are trademarks of Google LLC.