In case your Google Merchant Center got suspended due to misrepresentation, and you wonder how to fix the issues causing the suspension, we have listed a few common reasons worth investigating.
Google usually doesn’t explain exactly what caused that type of suspension, so you are left on your own trying to figure it out, and although there are probably more reasons as to why that suspension might happen, we have listed a few issues which we have seen is the reasons in those relevant cases.
- Condition mismatch - this happens when the item condition such as new/used/refurbished in the feed doesn’t match with what the website shows. For refurbished items, it's also recommended to ensure that product titles include the condition status such as refurbished. Also, it's important to make sure that your microdata also shows the right condition as in case it says New but it's a Used item, Google bots will be comparing all against microdata.
- Image mismatch - this might happen when you sell items available in different options e.g. multiple colors but your feed uses only an image of a 1st variant color rather than assigning relevant image color to each variant separately. Similar rules apply to e.g. sizes, packs, etc, always make sure that the item’s image reflects correctly what the item is about.
- Content mismatch - this can be caused by using the wrong titles for the wrong items, e.g. you are advertising item A but your title says it's an item B.
- Invalid policy pages - you are missing pages such as privacy policy, terms & conditions, and refund policy - make sure your website does include those pages and they are easily accessible, usually website’s footer is the best place for them.
- Placeholder/unfinished/under construction pages - make sure that you don’t have such pages and if you do, hide them from the public until it's all finished as those pages can cause misrepresentation due to suggesting your website is not finished yet or something doesn’t work correctly there.
- Non-working preselection - you have items available in different options but your URL doesn’t preselect the correct variant causing users to see not the one they clicked on - make sure your URL preselection works and the user is seeing the right option immediately on the landing page without any extra clicks.
Those are just ideas we would recommend to check and of course, feel free to contact us if you need help or would like to sign up for one of our plans and we can then try to help you figure it out.