Image: Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Google has made it a requirement for publishers and merchants to indicate if an image they use in Google Merchant Center was generated by AI.
In a policy update on Merchant Center Help Google said:
“If you’re using AI-generated images in Merchant Center, Google requires that you preserve any metadata tags which indicate that the image was created using generative AI in the original image file.”
This means embedded metadata tags such as trainedAlgorithmicMedia must not be removed from these images.
All AI-generated images must contain the IPTC DigitalSourceType trainedAlgorithmicMedia tag.
Google says the requirements apply to these image attributes in Merchant Center Classic and Merchant Center Next:
- Image link
[image_link] - Additional image link
[additional_image_link] - Lifestyle image link
[lifestyle_image_link]
You can learn more about IPTC metadata in Google Search Central’s documentation.
