Hundreds of products were flagged in Google's shopping feed. We cleared them in the right order.

The retailer sends its product list to Google every day so its products can appear in shopping results. Several hundred products were flagged, and the reasons did not match: some had file errors, some showed a different price or stock level on the website than in the list, some had picture problems.

A sale was a few weeks away. The retailer's earlier attempts had each cleared one kind of problem and then revealed another, and every change meant days of waiting for Google to look again.

Flagged products rarely share one cause, and the causes hide each other. A problem with the file itself can stop Google reading anything else, so the price and stock problems cannot even show up until it is fixed. Fixing them in the wrong order wastes the waiting time between each check.

So we read Google's reports first and grouped the products by cause. Then we worked in the order that does not waste a wait: the file first, then price and stock, then pictures.

These had to pass before we asked for sign-off.

• The data source's latest report shows processing completed with no file-level errors, and the number of products read matches the file.
• For each price and stock group in the agreed scope, Google's reports show no mismatch, or the product is listed with the reason it needs the retailer's action.
• Where pictures were flagged, each one shows no address, file-type or size problem in the reports, or is listed as needing a replacement.
• The retailer accepted every group in the agreed scope, or removed it from the list in writing.

The retailer received a grouped list of every flagged product with its cause, the corrected feed rules and change lists for the parts it controls, before-and-after reports for each group, and a final summary in three parts: cleared, needs the retailer's action, needs Google's review.

Most groups cleared. A group of products whose pictures were too small could not be fixed from the feed side, so they were listed with links for the retailer's team to replace.

• We did not promise approval. Google decides that, and some items needed Google's review.
• We did not touch the retailer's advertising campaigns, budgets or billing.
• We did not decide the retailer's prices, promotions or stock. Where they disagreed between the website and the file, the retailer chose which was right.
• Account suspensions and policy appeals were outside this job.