Inaccurate availability

Inaccurate availability means the availability Merchant Center has for the item does not match the product page. Google’s fix guide is Inaccurate availability status due to inconsistency between feed and landing page. Availability has to match across the landing page, checkout, structured data, and the product data source. Supported feed values are listed in the product data specification.

On Shopify, the Google & YouTube app usually builds availability from inventory quantity and the “continue selling when out of stock” policy. The theme builds a separate availability value in JSON-LD or microdata. Those two can disagree.

Shopify causes

The theme still says in stock. Inventory is 0 and the variant is set to stop selling when out of stock, so the feed should say out of stock. The product page JSON-LD, or the microdata offer, still says `https://schema.org/InStock`, and the button still says Add to cart.

Continue selling is on, and the theme says out of stock. Quantity is 0 but the variant policy is continue, so the feed can say in stock. Dawn often leaves `offers.availability` as `OutOfStock` while the button still sells. Google reads the page.

An out-of-stock variant URL redirects to another variant. The feed URL is for the sold-out variant. The theme redirects to an in-stock variant, so the crawler sees that other variant’s availability.

The structured data is missing or not a real availability value. See Missing microdata for condition and [Invalid value [availability]](/guides/invalid-value-availability).

What to change

1. Open the variant URL, including `?variant=`, and read the offer availability in the page source, not only the button label.
2. Set the theme so `offers.availability` follows that variant: `https://schema.org/OutOfStock` when quantity is 0 and the variant does not continue selling, and `https://schema.org/InStock` when it does.
3. Turn off continue selling if the item should not be advertised as in stock at zero quantity.
4. Stop redirecting a sold-out variant URL to a different variant. Google should land on the variant in the feed.
5. Update the page and the product data together. Google’s guide asks you not to change only one of them.

How PageCop detects it

The app reads Shopify inventory quantity and inventory policy for the variant, then reads JSON-LD or microdata availability and whether the add-to-cart control is sold out. A mismatch is filed as Inaccurate availability. A redirect from the requested variant to another variant is filed the same way.

The app does not read the availability value stored in Merchant Center. It compares the catalog with the page a crawler gets.

FAQ

Why does Dawn show OutOfStock when continue selling is on?

The theme often keys availability off quantity alone. Continue selling means the store will still take the order at zero quantity, so the feed and the page need to say in stock together. Change the theme offer, not only the button.

Is preorder the same as in stock?

No. Google’s availability values include preorder and backorder, and those need an availability date in the product data. This app treats a schema.org PreOrder value as a recognized availability. It does not invent a preorder date.