This guide is for store owners and marketers whose Google Merchant Center account has been suspended and whose products have stopped showing. By the end you’ll know what to check first, how to request a review and what not to do. You’ll need to be able to sign in to your Merchant Center account and to edit your website or store platform.

Step 1: Find out what Google is actually complaining about

Product-level issues only affect individual products. Account-level issues affect all of your products^[3]. A suspension is the second kind. If account issues stay unresolved, the account is suspended and your products stop appearing across Google. In egregious cases, Google gives no warning at all^[3][1].

1. Sign in to Merchant Center.
2. Look at the banner at the top of the page. It will say “Review and fix” or “Fix”. Click it.
3. Alternatively, go to Products, open the “Needs attention” tab and select “View setup and policy issues”^[3][2].
4. Write down the exact issue name. Copy it into a document. You’ll refer to it several times.

Don’t guess at the cause from a forum thread. Start from the exact issue named in your account.

Step 2: Check the warning period

Some issues come with a warning period of 7 or 28 days. At the end, the account is reviewed automatically^[1][2]. That doesn’t mean you should wait. Fix the issue inside the window, because if it’s still there when the review happens, the account can be suspended^[3].

Step 3: Match the issue to the common causes

Google’s help documentation names these common causes of account suspension: a missing return and refund policy, insufficient contact information and misrepresentation of yourself or your products^[1]. Work through them one at a time.

Return and refund policy

Open your store in a private window and look for the policy a shopper would find. It should be easy to reach from the footer and say plainly how long customers have to return items, who pays for postage and how refunds are issued. Then check that the return details in your Merchant Center settings match the page.

Contact information

Make sure shoppers can find a real phone number or email address, plus your business address, in the footer and on a contact page. The details on your site should match what’s in your Merchant Center business information.

Misrepresentation

This cause covers misrepresentation of yourself or your products^[1]. Check that your business identity, product descriptions and prices are accurate and clear on the site. Our separate walkthrough at https://oxfordimpulse.com/fix-google-merchant-center-misrepresentation-error/ covers it in depth, so read it before you request anything.

Step 4: Fix the problem on your site as well as in your account

Changing a setting in Merchant Center while the site still shows the problem may not be enough. Work through this list on the live store:

• Business name, address and contact details are the same in the footer, on the contact page and in Merchant Center.
• The return and refund policy, shipping information and terms are easy to find without logging in.
• Prices and availability on the product page match the feed. Check the “price” and “availability” attributes against what a shopper sees.
• Checkout works, uses a secure connection and shows the final price clearly.
• Product titles and images describe what you really sell.

Fix the source of the data. If your stock sync runs only occasionally, mismatches can keep coming back after you’ve requested a review.

Step 5: Complete identity verification if it’s required

For account-level suspensions, identity verification is often required before you can request a review^[2]. If you see a verification prompt, deal with that first. Our guide at https://oxfordimpulse.com/google-merchant-center-identity-verification/ explains how it works. Make sure the business details you give match what is on your website.

Step 6: Be honest about dropshipping

Dropshipping needs extra care. Make sure customers can see who they are buying from, who ships the order and how to return it, because misrepresentation of yourself or your products is one of the common causes of suspension^[1]. Our guide to whether Merchant Center allows dropshipping is at https://oxfordimpulse.com/does-google-merchant-center-allow-dropshipping/ and is worth reading before you request a review.

Step 7: Check for a linked suspension

If your Merchant Center account is linked to a Google Ads account that’s also suspended, appeal the suspended Google Ads account first^[5]. Check your Google Ads account before spending time on the Merchant Center side.

Step 8: Request the review

Only press the button when every fix is live. Then:

1. Open the issue in Merchant Center from the banner or from Products, “Needs attention”^[3].
2. Select “I fixed the issue”. If you believe Google got it wrong, select “I disagree with the issue”^[2].
3. Press Request review.

On Shopify, go to Sales channels, then Google & YouTube, then Settings and select Request re-review^[1].

Reviews take up to 7 business days^[2]. Use the wait to check that nothing on your site has changed since you made the fixes.

Step 9: Know what happens if the review fails

After a second unresolved review, a one-week cool down may start. The Request review button is greyed out and Google support can’t shorten it^[2]. Use that week to re-read the notice, compare it against your live site line by line and fix anything you missed. There is no point opening a support ticket to ask Google to skip the wait.

What not to do

• Don’t create a new account. Don’t open new accounts after a suspension or spread violating listings across several accounts. Google treats that as abuse of the network, and accounts are only reinstated in compelling circumstances^[4].
• Don’t request a review before you’ve fixed anything. A review that finds the issue still there uses up an attempt, and a second unresolved review can start a one-week cool down^[2].
• Don’t change only the feed. Your website should match it.

FAQs

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help: Fixing Merchant Center warnings and account suspensions for policy violations support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Request a review of your issues support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Issues in Merchant Center support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: Abuse of the network support.google.com
• Google Merchant Center Help: How to fix: Linked account suspension support.google.com