Google rarely tells you exactly what triggered your suspension. This guide covers the 10 most common reasons, how to identify which one applies to your account, and what to fix before you appeal.
You checked your Merchant Center dashboard and saw the words "Account suspended." Maybe Google gave you a policy category like "Misrepresentation" or "Policy violation." Maybe the message is vague enough to be useless. Either way, your Shopping ads have stopped, and you need to figure out what went wrong.
The frustrating truth: Google almost never specifies the exact violation. Their review process is largely automated, and the suspension notices are intentionally broad. That means you have to audit your own site to find the problem before you can fix it.
Here are the 10 most common reasons Google Merchant Center accounts get suspended, in order of how frequently they appear.
Run a free audit against all 43+ GMC suspension triggers. Most accounts get results in under 3 minutes.
Run Free GMC Audit →This is the broadest and most common suspension reason. Misrepresentation means Google believes your site may mislead customers about your business, products, or the purchase experience. It covers a wide range of issues: missing contact details, no physical address, a checkout that does not work, prices that differ between your feed and your site, or a site that looks untrustworthy. Full guide to misrepresentation suspensions →
Google requires three policy pages to be present, accessible without JavaScript, and linked from the footer on every page of your site: a return policy, a privacy policy, and a contact page. If any of these pages do not load cleanly, are behind a login, or are only linked from your homepage footer, you are at risk. Return policy guide → · Privacy policy guide → · Contact info guide →
If the price in your product feed does not match the price displayed on your product page at the time Google crawls it, you will be flagged. This happens more often than merchants expect — common causes include currency mismatches, promotional prices that expired on the site but not in the feed, tax display differences by country, and feed updates that lag behind website changes. Price mismatch guide →
Google prohibits certain product categories from Shopping entirely: counterfeit goods, recalled products, dangerous items, and products that violate third-party intellectual property rights. If your catalogue includes anything that touches these categories — even peripherally — your whole account can be suspended, not just the affected products. Prohibited content guide →
Google crawls your site to verify your feed data. If your site is down, returns errors, blocks Googlebot via robots.txt, or loads too slowly during the crawl window, Google cannot verify your products and may suspend the account. Unreachable website guide →
Google tests whether customers can actually complete a purchase on your site. If checkout is broken, requires account creation before purchase, or is in maintenance mode, that is a direct trigger for suspension. This includes stores that are "coming soon" or have incomplete payment setup. Checkout issues guide →
Incorrect product schema markup — especially mismatched prices or availability values — is flagged by Google as a data quality issue and can contribute to suspension, particularly when combined with other policy problems. Schema error guide →
Your site must serve all pages — including checkout — over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate. An expired certificate, a mixed-content warning on the payment page, or HTTP redirects that strip the secure protocol will trigger suspension. SSL error guide →
Google evaluates the overall quality and trustworthiness of your site. Sites with very thin product descriptions, no About page, no genuine contact information, or a design that looks like a drop-shipping template with no original content are at higher risk. Website quality guide →
Your shipping policy must be accessible, accurate, and consistent with the shipping information in your product feed. Missing delivery timeframes, countries not covered, or policies that contradict your actual checkout shipping options are common triggers. Shipping policy guide →
Work through these steps in order:
Fix everything before you appeal. This is the single most important piece of advice. Google reviewers check your entire site, not just the specific issue you mention in the appeal. If you patch one problem and appeal, but there are three other violations still present, your appeal will be rejected and you will start a cool-down period before you can try again.
Fix every violation you can find. Run the audit again to confirm the fixes are in place. Then submit a specific appeal that lists what was wrong, what you changed, and when you changed it. Generic appeals ("I fixed the issue") are rejected at a higher rate than specific ones.
The audit checks your site against all 43+ known suspension triggers and tells you exactly what to fix. Most merchants get their results in under 3 minutes.
Start Free Audit →