Excluded destination [excluded_destination]

Use the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute to prevent your product from appearing in chosen locations.

In this article

• When to use
• Format
• Best practices

When to use

Optional for each product

If you want to prevent your product from appearing in certain locations, use the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute.

Supported values:

• Shopping ads [Shopping_ads]: Prevent your product offers from showing in Shopping ads. Products will not be displayed in the product group and listing group selectors in Google Ads. Learn more about Shopping ads
• Buy on Google listings [Buy_on_Google_listings]: Prevent your product offers from showing as eligible in Buy on Google listings.
• Display ads [Display_ads]: Prevent your product offers from showing in dynamic remarketing ads. Note that excluding Display ads won't prevent dynamic remarketing ads from serving in Smart Shopping campaigns and Performance Max campaigns with an attached Merchant Center feed.
• Local inventory_ads [Local_inventory_ads]: Prevent your product offers from showing in local inventory ads.
• Free listings [Free_listings]: Prevent your products from appearing in free listings on Google.
• Free local listings [Free_local_listings]: Prevent your products from appearing in free local product listings on Google.

Note: Opt into the Dynamic Remarketing program in Google Merchant Center for the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute to work as it should with your Display ads.

Note: Some of the names for product destinations have been updated. You may have previously submitted the following values as destinations for your products: Shopping Actions, Surfaces across Google, Local surfaces across Google. These values will still be accepted, but we recommend that you update your products to include the new values for these destinations: Buy_on_Google_listings, Free_listings, Free_local_listings.

Format

Follow these formatting guidelines to make sure Google understands the data you're submitting.

Learn when and how to submit your product data in English

Supported values	Shopping_ads, Buy_on_Google_listings, Display_ads, Local_inventory_ads, Free_listings, Free_local_listings
Repeated field	Yes

File format	Example value
Text feeds	Display_ads
XML feeds	<g:excluded_destination>Display_ads</g:excluded_destination>

Repeated fields

Text

To submit multiple destinations that you'd like to exclude, submit the attribute multiple times, once for each destination (recommended). For example:

Product data for an orthopedic dog bed
Attribute	Value
Title [title]	XXL Orthopedic Dog Bed
Excluded destination [excluded_destination]	Display_ads
Excluded destination [excluded_destination]	Shopping_ads
Excluded destination [excluded_destination]	Buy_on_Google_listings

You can also separate each destination with a comma ( , ):

Attribute	Value
Excluded destination [excluded_destination]	Display_ads,Shopping_ads,Buy_on_Google_listings

XML

To submit multiple destination to exclude for an XML feed, include a separate attribute for each excluded destination:

<g:excluded_destination>Display_ads</g:excluded_destination>

<g:excluded_destination>Shopping_ads</g:excluded_destination>

<g:excluded_destination>Buy_on_Google_listings</g:excluded_destination>

To format your data for Content API, see the Content API for Shopping resource.

Note: Content API checks if the destination is visible to a merchant when the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute is applied. Use a program opt-in to make the destination visible.

Note: To ensure that this product data attribute gets recognized by our system correctly, remember to submit your data feed file in a format that we support.

Best practices

These best practices can help you go beyond the basic requirements to optimize your product data for performance.

• If you submit conflicting information for the excluded destination [excluded_destination] and included destination [included_destination] attributes, the excluded destination value will always take precedence over the included destination value.
• When you want to prevent showing ads or free listings for your product: If the product is available for sale but you’d like to stop showing ads or free listings for the product, use the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute. This way, you can manage which destinations your products appear in. You can specifically stop showing products in a particular destination, such as free product listings, or for all destinations.
• When you want to temporarily pause your product from showing in ads: Use the pause [pause] attribute. This attribute lets you stop showing a product in Shopping ads, Display ads, and local inventory ads for up to 14 days, then quickly reactivate. Learn more about the pause [pause] attribute. Alternatively stop showing products for ads by changing your Google Ads campaign settings.
• When you take your website down for maintenance or a holiday: Ads and free listings for your products will stop showing until your website is ready to receive traffic again if you use the excluded destination [excluded_destination] attribute. By following this best practice, you'll prevent unnecessary disapproval in your account and get your ads and free listings running again more quickly than if they'd been disapproved.