Our goal is to help users find merchants that offer excellent shopping experiences. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to suspend temporarily or permanently the accounts of merchants that we believe may not meet commonly accepted minimum standards for customer service and/or business practices.
Failure to adhere to the following policies will result in your account being suspended or disabled. Please read them very carefully before uploading your products.
The following descriptions outline our policies in detail, while also including specific examples, where appropriate. These examples are meant to illustrate the policies, but will not cover every possible situation. Please keep the general policies in mind when creating your data feed.
We reserve the right to approve or reject any account, data feed or specific product(s) at any time.
Quality of Product Data
In order to provide users a high-quality shopping experience, the product data provided to Google needs to accurately describe your items, and has to reflect the current status of the products on your website at all times. Learn more on how to provide high-quality product data.
We will periodically check your products to ensure the accuracy of your product data. If your product data doesn’t meet our quality standards, your products will be suspended from Google Product Search until the issues have been addressed.
In case of repeated violations of our quality standards, your items will be suspended:
- for at least one week after the second violation
- at least one month after the third violation
After the third violation, we may suspend your items for an extended period of time - potentially indefinitely.
Links, URLs and Your Website
- You must maintain the website associated with your account at all times in working order. This means that all of your URLs must link directly to landing pages about your products. Your landing pages must be webpages, your URLs can't link to files or email addresses.
- Landing pages may not have pop-ups and must not redirect to other pages, such as pages requiring sign-ups or passwords.
- It must be straightforward for a user to find the product he or she is looking for when they arrive on a landing page, especially when there are multiple items on one landing page. As a rule of thumb, do not put more than five items on one page. It is okay to put all variations of a product on the same page.
- Data provided about your items -- in particular, images, prices and availability -- has to be clearly visible to users on landing pages.
- You must verify and claim your website URL before being able to upload and publish product data. Learn more on how to verify your website.
- Any certificates that are listed on your website must be valid.
- You must ensure that the user-agent 'googlebot' is not being blocked from crawling your website or product pages. Please refer to common product crawl issues to learn more.
Language and Promotional Messages
- Use standard spelling and grammar. Avoid any repeated, unnecessary or excessive use of punctuation, capitalization or symbols. Don't use exclamation points in your product titles unless the official product title contains them. The use of symbols, numbers, and letters have to adhere to the true meaning of the symbol.
- The only exception to excessive capitalization is if your company name is written in all capital letters. In such a case it is permissible to submit your company name in all capital letters, i.e. “ACME”
- Avoid offensive or inappropriate language.
- Promotional or boilerplate text may not be included in your store name and product data. All data needs to be a clear and direct description of the submitted product. Text related to shopping or store policies is not allowed. For example, "Free shipping" is not allowed.
- Your images may not contain promotional messages of any kind, including watermarks or promotional text. You are not allowed to submit image links to logo images or other generic images.
Prices
- All membership sites must allow non-member purchasing and list their products at the non-member price. We do not allow listings for products that require a paid club or website membership to purchase.
- The price on the landing page has to be equal to the price on Google Product Search. It has to be straightforward for the user to find the right item and price. For example, for membership sites, the non-member price has to be the most prominent price for users coming from Google Product Search. Exceptions are granted on a case by case basis.
- For products sold in bulk quantities, you must submit the total price for the minimum number of items sold. This price has to be the most prominent price on the landing page.
- Landing pages must list prices in the appropriate currency of the target country. The appropriate currency has to be shown automatically if multiple currencies are available. Products must be displayed in and sold in the currency of the target country.
- If you are selling or shipping the product from another country, you must ensure that the buyer does not incur any extra charges or fees other than the actual price of the product and shipping charge.
- You may not submit any items with variable prices, such as in auctions. All products must be sold at fixed prices.
- Free products are not allowed.
Tax
- For US: The prices of the items submitted in your data feed and the prices displayed on your landing pages must not include any tax. Instead, please provide the tax information either at the account level or under the 'tax' attribute. Learn more on our tax and shipping requirements.
- For other countries: The prices submitted in your data feed must include VAT. The prices including VAT must also be displayed on your landing pages.
Shipping
- You must only provide direct-to-consumer shipping rates. Rates for other methods, like ship-to-store delivery, are not allowed.
- If you apply VAT on shipping, submit shipping prices in your feed that include VAT.
- Your products must be shippable throughout the target country.
- If you ship from outside the target country:
- You need to provide the shipping information (country, region, service, price) applicable to the target country. The shipping price must be the one that the customer will pay when buying the item from the target country.
- Your shop must cover all customs fees. The customs fees shouldn't be charged separately to the customer.
Payments
- Your website must provide a way for users to purchase the product online through either a payment service or directly from your website. Payment and transaction processing, as well as processing of any personal information of the user (such as the address) must be secure (SSL-protected, with a valid SSL certificate).
Country-specific Requirements
- Product data must be in the target country's official language. If the country has multiple official languages, you can submit in any of these languages (be sure to select the same language in Merchant Center).
- Landing pages (including product information) as well as the entire website have to be in the target country's official language.
Duplicate and Borrowed Content
- You may only submit one listing per item, no matter if you own multiple websites.
- If you have one product that is compatible with multiple systems (such as a memory card, a printer cartridge or car parts), you may only submit the item once.
- Submitting borrowed content from websites that are not your own is not permitted. This includes image links from sites that you do not own or do not have explicit permission to link to.
Marketplaces, Aggregators and Individual Marketplace Sellers
- If you are a marketplace, aggregator or an individual seller on a marketplace, additional policies apply to you. Learn more about our policies for marketplaces and for individual marketplace sellers.
| Unacceptable product categories | Examples |
| Adult goods, services, and content | All adult sexual products must be marked as Adult within your Merchant Center account. If your offers or site contain adult sexual content (including text or images), your account is also subject to this requirement. The promotion of prostitution or non-consensual adult material is never permitted. Learn more about the adult setting in your Google Merchant Center account |
| Affiliates, cataloged drop-shipping programs, and multi-level marketing | The promotion of affiliate or pay-per-click links, products sold through a commission-based relationship, or sites that bulk list products fulfilled through drop-ship consolidators is not allowed. This includes item pages that are made up almost entirely of advertisements, or pages where advertisements obstruct the view of the submitted product. The promotion of multi-level marketing (MLM) business products is also not permitted, such as businesses that recruit members and offer them rewards for recruiting others and/or selling services |
| Anti and Violence | Products and associated websites may not promote violence or advocate against a protected group. This standard applies to everyone who wants to post on Google, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not. A protected group is distinguished by their race or ethnic origin, color, national origin, religion, disability, sex, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity |
| Body parts | Body parts or human remains in any form may never be posted. |
| Bulk marketing tools and spam | The following bulk
marketing products are not permitted if the stated or implied use of
these products is unsolicited spam:
|
| Copyright unlocking devices | Mod chips or other devices designed to circumvent copyright protection are not permitted |
| Copyrighted or counterfeit goods | All products must respect copyright and trademark law. Posting is not permitted for unauthorized or "bootleg" copies of media, software, or other licensed or protected material. Replicas or imitations of designer goods, fake autographs, counterfeit stamps, and other potentially unauthorized goods are not allowed |
| Drugs, drug paraphernalia, and drug test circumvention aids | Illegal drugs and drug accessories, including herbal drugs such as salvia and magic mushrooms may never be posted. In addition, products such as drug cleansing shakes and urine test additives are not permitted. |
| False Representation | You may not post on behalf of Google, or otherwise impersonate a Google employee. |
| Fireworks and hazardous materials | Fireworks or related items including any substance that is toxic, explosive, flammable, and radioactive are prohibited |
| Gaming/Gambling | Online casinos, sports books, bingo, and affiliates with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites may not be posted |
| Illegal goods and services | You must post in accordance with
the laws of your target country. Materials, products, or information promoting illegal goods or enabling
illegal acts are prohibited. You may not disclaim knowledge of, or responsibility for,
the authenticity or legality of the products you offer. You are responsible to
authenticate any products you sell. Submitted products must be legal in the
entire target region in order to be accepted. For example, items
submitted to Google Product Search US must be legal in the entirety of all 50 states
|
| Miracle Cures | The promotion of unsubstantiated cures, remedies, or other products marketed as quick health fixes are not permitted |
| Online gaming goods and services | Currency, items, or related services for online games are prohibited |
| Personal information | You may not post content that includes contact or personal information about another individual without their permission |
| Prescriptions drugs or pharmacies | Sites selling prescription drugs must meet our eligibility criteria. |
| Wholesale currency | The promotion of discounted currencies or currency exchanges is never permitted |
| Anabolic steroids | The promotion of anabolic steroids, muscle-enhancing stacks and cycles, body-building supplements that have a similar effect to steroids, and related content, irrespective of claims of legality, are not allowed. Prohibited items include, but aren't limited to:
|
| Tobacco and tobacco related products | The listing of tobacco and tobacco related products is prohibited in Google Shopping Australia. |
| Other prohibited categories | The following product categories may not be submitted for listing in Google Product Search:
|