A free shipping claim that does not hold up at checkout is one of the most common and most fixable causes of a Google Merchant Center suspension. This guide explains every scenario where shipping claims go wrong and the exact steps to bring your account into compliance.
Google Shopping ads are required to show shoppers the accurate total cost of a purchase, including shipping. When your ad says "Free shipping" but the customer reaches your checkout and sees a $9.99 shipping fee, Google treats the discrepancy as misrepresentation. This can happen even when you genuinely intend to offer free shipping, because the configuration across your GMC shipping settings, your product feed, and your store's checkout are not automatically in sync.
The most dangerous version of this issue is when you configure free shipping correctly in one place but leave a contradicting value somewhere else. Google reads all three data sources and flags any conflict. A single product with a hardcoded shipping attribute in your feed can cause the entire account to fail a shipping accuracy review.
2026 enforcement note. Google has increased automated price and shipping accuracy checks as part of its March 2026 Shopping ad quality update. Accounts that previously passed manual review are now being caught by automated shipping verification that compares your GMC shipping settings against test-checkout data in real time.
If your product feed includes a shipping attribute with a dollar value for individual products (even a leftover value from an old template), that value overrides your account-level free shipping setting in GMC. The product will show up in Shopping with its feed-level shipping cost rather than your intended free shipping offer. You must remove or zero out the shipping attribute in your feed for the account setting to take effect.
A "Free Shipping on All Orders" banner on your homepage or product pages creates an expectation that Google's reviewers will test at checkout. If your Shopify, WooCommerce, or other platform still has a default shipping rate applied at checkout (even for specific regions or product weight ranges), orders that trigger that rate will not match the banner claim. Google flags the discrepancy during test purchases.
Free shipping that only applies to certain states or countries while your ad runs nationally is a violation. If you offer free shipping only within the continental US but your Shopping ad runs to Alaska and Hawaii customers (where shipping costs are higher), the customers who see "Free shipping" in the ad will face a charge at checkout. Your GMC shipping settings must match your actual shipping zones precisely.
Conditional free shipping (free above $50, for example) is allowed, but only when set up correctly in GMC's shipping rate configuration with the minimum order value specified. If you set the shipping attribute to "free" in your product feed but your checkout applies shipping on orders below your threshold, the discrepancy between the ad and checkout triggers a policy flag.
Start in your GMC account. Go to Shipping and returns settings and review every shipping service you have configured. Check that the service applies the correct geographic coverage, that free shipping is configured for the correct order conditions, and that the service is actually assigned to the correct products or all products.
Next, export your product feed and search the shipping column. Any product that has a shipping value in the feed (rather than inheriting from account settings) needs to be checked. Either update the value to match your intended offer or clear the attribute so the account-level setting applies instead.
Then complete a real test checkout. Use an incognito window, add a product to your cart, proceed all the way to the shipping step, and verify that the shipping cost shown matches what your Shopping ad claimed. Test with multiple products and multiple destination zip codes if your offer has geographic conditions.
Our tool checks your feed shipping attributes, GMC account shipping settings, and your live checkout for discrepancies that trigger policy violations.
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Step 1: Clean up your feed shipping attributes. If you have a shipping column in your product feed, either remove it entirely (to inherit from account settings) or set every product's shipping value to the correct amount. For free shipping, that value should be 0 USD (or your local currency equivalent at zero). Do not leave legacy values from previous templates.
Step 2: Configure GMC shipping services correctly. In your GMC shipping settings, create or update a shipping service that covers your target region with a $0 rate. If you have conditional free shipping, create two rates: a $0 rate for orders above the threshold, and your actual rate for orders below it. Set the minimum order value on the free rate. Do not set the product feed attribute to "free" for items that will not always qualify.
Step 3: Update your store's checkout shipping settings. Your GMC shipping settings and your store's checkout shipping settings (in Shopify, WooCommerce, or your platform of choice) must match exactly. If GMC says free shipping to the contiguous US, your store must also offer free shipping to those zones with no hidden weight-based overrides.
Step 4: Update your shipping policy page. Your written shipping policy page must accurately describe the same conditions as your actual checkout. If free shipping is conditional on order value, say so explicitly. Google reviewers check the shipping policy page as part of their manual review process.
After completing these steps, review the full GMC suspension checklist to confirm no other issues are outstanding before you file your appeal through the GMC appeal process guide.
If your account was suspended under misrepresentation broadly, the misrepresentation guide covers every other area you need to audit before submitting your reinstatement request.
Yes. Conditional free shipping is allowed, but you must configure the threshold correctly in your GMC shipping settings. Set up a shipping rate of $0 that applies when the cart total exceeds your minimum. Do not set the shipping attribute in your product feed to "free" unless every order qualifies, regardless of cart total.
There are two separate places where shipping is configured: your GMC account shipping settings and the shipping attribute in your product feed. If both are not set consistently, Google shows whichever is higher. A product feed shipping attribute that shows a cost will override a $0 account-level setting for that product.
Yes. Google's automated systems and human reviewers regularly test-purchase products from GMC merchants. If a product is advertised as free shipping but the reviewer sees a shipping cost at checkout (whether due to geographic restrictions, minimum order requirements not being met, or a misconfigured Shopify shipping profile), it is logged as a price accuracy violation.
Shipping mismatches are often one of several issues flagged on suspended accounts. After correcting your shipping configuration, run a full audit to check for other policy page gaps, price mismatches, or checkout issues before submitting your appeal. A reinstatement request submitted with unresolved secondary issues will be denied.