Free tool

Google product category finder

This finder searches the full Google product taxonomy by keyword and returns the numeric category ID to put in google_product_category. Each result also says which vertical requirements that branch of the taxonomy brings with it.

Type what you sell in plain words. Categories that contain every word you typed come first, and where nothing contains all of them the closest matches are shown instead, because the taxonomy is often less specific than a product name.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you paste is uploaded or stored.

Describe what you sell

Loading the taxonomy…

The taxonomy could not be loaded. Google publishes it as a plain text file, which you can search directly if this keeps failing.

Searching categories from the Google product taxonomy, version .

Nothing in the taxonomy contains any of those words. Try the plainest name for the product.

No category contains every word you typed, so these are the closest matches. The taxonomy is often less specific than a product name: a running shoe is filed under Shoes.

further matches are not shown. Add another word to narrow them down.

Frequently asked questions

Should I submit the category ID or the full path?

The numeric ID. It is shorter, unambiguous, and unaffected by wording changes in the path, though the path is easier to read while you are building a mapping table.

How specific should the category be?

As specific as you are confident about. A more precise category helps, but guessing a deeper branch attaches requirements the product may not meet, so stopping a level short is better than being wrong.

Does the category change what my feed needs?

Yes, and this is the part that surprises people. Categorising an item into Apparel & Accessories makes colour, size, gender and age group required for it, so the category choice creates requirements elsewhere.

Which channels use the Google product taxonomy?

Google Shopping and Microsoft Advertising both accept these values in google_product_category. Meta does not use the attribute at all, and OpenAI takes a product_category field of its own.

How current is this taxonomy?

The tool states the version it loaded underneath the search box. It is Google's published taxonomy file, fetched into this site rather than retyped.

Attributes this relates to

google_product_category The google_product_category attribute places an item in Google's own fixed product taxonomy, a tree of several thousand predefined categories. Google infers a category when the attribute is omitted, but the inference is often wrong for specialist catalogues, and certain categories such as alcohol and subscription hardware require it explicitly.

Related concepts

Product feed A product feed is a structured file listing every item a shop sells, with one row per purchasable item and one column per attribute the destination understands. Sales channels use it to build their own copy of a catalogue, which is why a feed is a translation of a shop's data into another system's schema rather than an export of it.

Primary sources

Channel specifications change. These are the official documents this page is based on.