This article basically provides insight into the recovery of “Suspended Google Merchant Center Account.” The purpose of this article is to provide a complete and reliable solution to the users whose account has been suspended. The reasons for suspension and their solutions have been mentioned in detail.
What is a Google Merchant Center Account?
A merchant center account enables the user to reach millions of people who are searching for a product like the one user is selling or providing. It becomes available for google shopping or other services provided by google. It enables the user to manage how his/her product is displayed on google.
Basically, it’s a platform where all the suppliers can upload data regarding their products and so, they become available for the customer who is looking for them. It, therefore, becomes easy for the customer and supplier both. The information regarding products is available on the google ad campaigns and the user simply needs a google account to sign up for this merchant center account.
The benefits of this account are:
- It can help boost sales by reaching more and more customers.
- It can help reach the most valuable customers.
- The impact of each sale is measured.
- The products are added to google without any cost.
Why is the Google Merchant Center Account suspended?
The main reasons why google suspends this account are:
- Mismatch of the shipping and tax charges on the account and website
- Misrepresentation
- Limitations and restrictions on certain businesses or products
- Promotions not being trustworthy
- Any suspicious activity
- Deceiving Google
We’ll get back to the details of these and other issues later in the article when we’ll discuss what to do before filing an appeal for restoring.
HOW TO RESTORE THE GMC Suspended ACCOUNT?
When your google merchant center account gets suspended, there are certain points that should be kept in mind when trying to recover the suspended account.
The Don’ts
- Do not be quick in making an appeal right away.
- Do not assume that you’ve not violated any policy.
- When the account is suspended, do not go for creating a new google merchant center account or google ads.
- If you write an appeal, do not show an attitude as if you are yelling at the google support.
- Do not submit a lot of appeals.
The Do’s
- If google sends you any details after suspension of account like any email etc. regarding the policies, review it carefully.
- The user should carefully analyze the website and the google merchant account to see if there is any violation of policies or if there is any such activity that makes the google team think that the user is violating the policies.
- If there is insufficient contact information, the user should provide the required info.
- Make sure that a proper payment method is available to the users.
- The user should find out if any information on the website needs to be corrected.
- The user should see if there is a need to involve any google partner while making the appeal.
- When making an appeal to review the account, be careful while mentioning the details. The details should include your own analysis that why google has suspended your account.
- If you have made any required changes etc, do notify them in the appeal.
What to do when Google sends a warning?
Google does not often give a warning before suspension, but when it does, the account is automatically reviewed by them after the warning period (that is usually a week) ends. When the rectification has not been done and the notice period is over, the account is suspended altogether. Till the issue is fixed, the products are available for other destinations but not for the shopping ads.
What to do when a Google Merchant Account is suspended without any warning?
Google can suspend an account forever. It’s their platform and they better know whom to allow using it. You cannot talk directly to the Google’s policy team. Sometimes when you submit an appeal, if you are lucky enough, it will go through an automated system, and you will be able to correspond to google support team member who can act as a link with the google policy team or you can mail directly to the google support through your google merchant center account. They normally respond within 48 hours. They can also provide you details about the violation that you’ve done. A user can file an appeal, but before that the user must make sure that all the possible errors are rectified.
WHAT TO RECTIFY AFTER A WARNING OR BEFORE MAKING AN APPEAL TO RESTORE A SUSPENDED ACCOUNT
Listed below are the procedures that can help how you can deal with a specific warning or suspension, because till the issue is fixed, your product is not available for shopping ads. So, when your account receives a warning or is suspended overall, make sure you focus on the following possible issues and make necessary changes.
“Remember you can rectify and appeal for a review before the account gets suspended forever”
To begin, firstly open the merchant center diagnostics page and click the item issues tab to see the possible issues, you can click learn more to learn about the issues and fix them.
Most of the times the issues are:
- Misrepresentation of products or self
This means that the user has concealed or misstated some information regarding the product or himself. This happens when you have promotions that are untrustworthy. To resolve this problem, the user should
- Look if there are any clues in the mail sent by google.
- The sale prices and prices in the feed should match the prices that are visible to
- customers at checkout. If they are not matching work on them and rectify this issue.
- The products and quality should be the same as mentioned on the website and account.
- If you have any sensitive product (that google may see as dangerous) on your list remove them as they may have led to the warning.
- Omission of relevant information:
This means that the user is providing insufficient details regarding the product. What to do?
- Provide accurate pricing and disclose any shipping fee or additional taxes.
- Turn on “Automatic item updates” on your merchant account so if you have any trouble in updating the Prices, they are updated regularly.
- Make sure the URL of every product is accurate according to the product. If they are not, it leads to confusion of prices regarding the product that has variations e.g., in sizes. So, when google reads the wrong prices, you may receive a warning. One way to rectify this issue is by using schema.org so that your web page is marked up correctly.
- Make sure that the customer has accurate information regarding the product that they will get. If you are selling boxing gloves, mention properly if they are in a pair or a single glove. Information should be same as on website.
- The return or refund policy should be clear.
- If the sales of your company are tax deductible, it should be clear on your website.
- Unavailable promotions
When this is a problem, it can be solved in the following manner
- A user can get flagged if the availability of the products is not updated. So, make sure that the products that are being offered are available. You should have a dynamic feed. You can also go for preorders if the inventory is going short so you can avoid being blamed for not providing the products as demanded.
- If the products are unavailable to the customers, although being displayed on the website or account, you can be found liable for policy violation
- Use inventory threshold if you sell products through multiple channels
- The prices and availability should be tagged correctly. Google recommends using the “Rich Results Test” so that the prices you show on the web page are the same as the prices that you show in your sale ads.
- Unrealistic or misleading promotions
Look for the keywords that are considered inappropriate by google. The product descriptions should be scanned so there is not any claim or keyword that is banned. Also never guarantee the results that do not match with the category of your product.
- Prohibited or restricted content, technical or editorial issues and prohibited practices and products
These are also the reasons an account may be suspended. So before filing a review, a user must look for these mistakes as well. The prohibited products should be avoided. Google has updated a list of all such products like guns, weapons etc., if they are advertised google can take an action against the user. Inappropriate images and illegitimate ads should not be used.
- Delivery issues
You should be able to deliver in all the countries where you are displaying your product. If not, this issue can also raise red flags for you.
- Incomplete contact details:
Make sure that the business address, the contact number, email etc. are the same on your merchant center account as they are on the website. All such information should be up to the mark.
- Missing information regarding the payment methods and inaccurate shipping costs
You should make clear on the actual page and merchant center account that how are the customers going to pay whether through debit or credit card or cash on delivery. The shipping costs on your feed or on the google merchant center account should match with those that are available on the website.
- Checkout process is not secure and transparent.
By secure checkout, it is meant that the process is protected with SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate. All the personal identity information like email name etc. should be secure and the payment and transaction processing should also be secure. Whenever the checkout fails to meet the requirements set by google, the account is suspended.
- The legal pages missing
All the legal pages should be there on the website and should not be hidden e.g., the shipping and return policy page, the privacy policy page etc.
- Wrong language or currency
Use the language or currency that is acceptable in the country where you are selling you product.
TIME TO REQUEST A REVIEW
After fixing all these issues, it’s time to request a review. If there is warning only, google will review itself after a specific time. When suspended, google might send you an email and this email has a link where you can contact google, if the email doesn’t have a link, you can contact google support through the numbers given on google support.
If there is suspension, follow the steps:
- Ensure that all the issues have been resolved
- Log in to your account
- When you see the navigation menu, click on the “products” tab and then “diagnostics”
- Select the tab “account issues”
- Select “request review” and follow all the pop ups until you reach the check box for request review.
This process can take as many as seven days and once it is completed, the user will receive an email notification. If it’s not fixed, you’ll have to fix some more errors and submit a second review. All this process takes time, so you must be patient. After the second appeal if its not fixed, the user would enter a cool down period. During this period, you cannot submit another review. You will have to wait for a week.
When there are no options left what to do?
At this moment you can still contact the google partners e.g., CEO of “Stubgroup” a google partner, says that you can still got to them as a last try to revert your account. But if google still does not feel like restoring, it would not ever because there are times when the user does not even know what caused the account to be suspended.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this article was to help all those users whose Google Merchant Account has been suspended. For the restoration or reactivation of the account, the users must rectify the above-mentioned errors and try to avoid them in future. There is always a chance that the google account can be restored and this problem can be avoided altogether.
Being careful is the key!
References:
https://www.datafeedwatch.com/blog/google-merchant-account-suspendedhttps://support.google.com/merchants/answer/188924?hl=en