Duplicate & Variant Value Auditor

One value per line. This answers one question — which of these are the same thing? — and it answers it in three degrees of certainty, because they need three different amounts of your attention.

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Turn this off for SKU and id columns, where nothing is a synonym.

Exact duplicates are the easy half

Any spreadsheet can find two identical rows. What breaks a product feed is the other kind: L, Large, large and are four different sizes to every system that compares strings, and one size to every buyer. Variant grouping splits, faceted search sprouts duplicate filters, and inventory stops matching.

A deduplicator that only finds exact matches misses precisely the problem you came here with.

Three degrees, three different actions

Whitespace is shown, not hidden

Leading and trailing spaces are drawn as in the results. They are invisible in a spreadsheet and significant to everything downstream, and they are the single most common reason two apparently identical values refuse to match.

The synonym list is deliberately short

It holds only pairs that are the same word — size abbreviations, Grey and Gray, Men's and Mens. It does not contain Small and XS, because those genuinely differ and merging them would cost you real sales.

Every check this tool runs (7 rules)

COL-D01 Identical values repeated

The same value appears on more than one row. In a SKU or id column that is a hard error — the second row either overwrites the first or is rejected, and which one happens depends on the platform.

Fix: Delete the duplicate rows, or give each its own identifier.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-P01 Same value, different presentation

These differ only in case, spacing, or invisible characters. Every system that compares strings exactly — deduplication, variant grouping, inventory matching — treats them as different values, so one product ends up split across several.

Fix: Normalise to the canonical form shown — the most-used spelling, or the one you wrote first if they tie.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-S01 Values that look like the same thing written differently

Things like L and Large, or Grey and Gray. Merging them usually fixes variant grouping and faceted search, but not always — in some categories the short and long forms genuinely differ. This is offered for a decision, not applied as a correction.

Fix: Pick one form per attribute and use it everywhere, once you have confirmed they mean the same thing here.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-W01 Leading or trailing whitespace

Whitespace at the ends of a value is invisible in a spreadsheet and significant to everything else. It is the single most common reason two apparently identical values fail to match.

Fix: Trim the column.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-C01 Inconsistent capitalisation across the column

A column where the same attribute appears in several capitalisations usually means it was assembled from more than one source. Buyers see it in facets and filters exactly as written.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-E01 Empty values in the column

Blank rows in an attribute column are not necessarily wrong, but they are worth counting: a variant attribute that is blank on some rows will not group those rows with the others.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

COL-V01 Every value is distinct and consistently written

No duplicates, no presentation variants, and no obvious synonyms.

Source: Google Merchant Center — Product data specification

Google's size and colour values are recommendations rather than requirements, so synonym findings are worded as observations — never as errors.