Our policy
|
Google doesn't want customers to feel misled by the content promoted in your offers, and that means being upfront, honest, and providing them with the information that they need to make informed decisions. For this reason we don’t allow the following:
Learn more about Building trust with your customers. |
Violations of this policy are taken very seriously and are considered egregious. An egregious violation of Shopping policies is a violation so serious that it’s unlawful or poses significant harm to our users. In determining whether a merchant or destination is violating this policy, Google may review information from multiple sources including your promotion, website, accounts, and third-party sources. If violations of this policy are found, your Google accounts will be suspended upon detection and without prior warning, and you won’t be allowed to promote with Google Shopping again. If you believe there's been an error, and that you haven’t violated our policy, submit an appeal and explain why. Accounts are only reinstated in compelling circumstances, and when there’s good reason so it's important that you take the time to be thorough, accurate, and honest. Learn more about suspended accounts.
Below are some examples of what to avoid in your offers.
On this page
- Unacceptable business practices
- Misleading or unrealistic offers
- Omission of relevant information
- Unavailable offers
- Why this isn’t allowed
- Best practices (non-exhaustive)
- Tips for submitting your appeal
- What you can do
Unacceptable business practices
The following isn't allowed:
Scamming users by hiding or misrepresenting info about your business or product isn’t allowed. This means you can’t:
- Make it seem like you’re supported by another brand, organization or government entity when you’re not
- Offer products that you don't have or can't deliver, including not having the right licenses or qualifications
- Impersonate other brands or businesses in your offers or on your website to hide your identity or imply connections or qualifications
- Present a false identity, business name, or contact information
- Enticing customers to part with money or information under false or unclear pretenses
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Charging customers for products typically available for free
- Impersonating brands or businesses by referencing or modifying the brand content in the listings, URL, destinations or misrepresenting yourself as the brand or business in customer interactions
- Enticing customers to part with money or information through a fictitious business that lacks the qualifications or capacity to provide the listed product
- Claiming to be a certified reseller of goods when not actually certified, using a brand name to drive traffic to a different product on the site
- Pretending to be a discount online retail store to entice people into buying products and then not delivering the items that they paid for
- Denying return and refund for a product despite having a clear refund or return policy that allows for returns and refunds
Offer destinations that use “phishing” techniques to gather user information
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Sites that trick users into revealing their personal information by mimicking a trusted retailer
Misleading or unrealistic offers
The following isn’t allowed:
Using false claims or claims that entice the user with an improbable result (even if this result is possible) as the likely outcome that a user can expect
Examples:
- "Miracle cures" for medical ailments, such as extreme weight loss products
Falsely implying affiliation with, or endorsement by, another individual, organization, product, or service
Examples:
- Misleading use or mimicry of official government sites, stamps, seals, or agency names
Listings promoting harmful health claims, or content that relates to a current, major health crisis and contradicts authoritative scientific consensus
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Anti-vaccine advocacy
- Denial of the existence of medical conditions such as AIDS or COVID-19
- Gay conversion therapy
Making claims that are proven false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Information about public voting procedures
- Political candidate eligibility based on age or birthplace
- Election results
- Incorrect claims that a public figure has died, or been involved in an accident
Content or claims that contradict authoritative scientific consensus on climate change
Omission of relevant information
The following isn’t allowed:
Failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose the payment model and full expense that a customer will bear before and after purchase
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Pricing of products (total price, currency) may depend on additional conditions impacting the total cost for the user such as, auction pricing, membership fees, contract, payment schemes, additional purchase requirement, creating additional undisclosed payment obligations during payment processing
Failure to clearly and conspicuously disclose all related conditions before and after purchase
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Missing merchant terms and conditions or shipping information
- Return and refund policy that is unclear, missing, or not easily discoverable.
Omitting material information when promoting content as benefiting a charitable or political organization
Examples (non-exhaustive):
- Failing to display a charity or tax exemption number for charitable donations
- Failing to disclose whether political donations are tax exempt or not
Unavailable offers
The following isn’t allowed:
Promising products or promotional offers that aren’t available for users
Examples:
- Promoting products that aren't stocked, promoting a deal that’s no longer active, call-to-action in promotion that isn't easily achievable from the landing page
- View the Product data specification attributes on availability and price for specific guidelines to comply with this policy.
We may take action on your account based on the following situations:
- Adverse regulatory warnings
- Settlements or rulings about a merchant’s business practices
- Direct complaints from businesses and other entities about impersonation
We take violations of this policy very seriously. An obvious violation of our Shopping ads policies is a violation so serious that it's unlawful or poses significant harm to our users.
We determine whether a merchant or destination is violating this policy by doing the following:
- Reviewing information from multiple sources including your product, website, accounts, and third-party sources.
- If we then find violations of this policy, we’ll suspend your Merchant Center account upon detection and without prior warning and you won't be allowed to participate in Shopping ads and free listings again. We may also restrict your Merchant Center account's product limit.
What can you do if you believe there’s been an error and you haven’t violated our policy
- You can submit an appeal and explain why.
- We only reinstate accounts in compelling circumstances and when there's good reason, so it's important that you take the time to be thorough, accurate, and honest.
Why this isn’t allowed
- It’s harmful to people: They can be exposed to scams, misleading information, or even dangerous products or services.
- It damages the overall advertising ecosystem: When people have bad experiences, they become less likely to trust any ads, which hurts all advertisers. Shopping Ads wants to maintain a safe and healthy ecosystem for everyone.
Best practices (non-exhaustive)
Review this non-exhaustive list of best practices to help ensure that your ads comply with this policy.
- Deliver what customers paid for: Provide the products or services customers purchased, meeting agreed-upon specifications.
- Describe your business on your website: Make sure your website has updated contact information and a clear explanation of what your company does, like on an "About us" page.
- Use your own branding: Use your own name, logo, images, and colors on your website and in your ads.
- Avoid using another brand’s identity in a misleading way: Avoid using another brand’s name, logo, images, and colors in ways that can trick people. Don’t misspell another brand’s name in your ad text, like “G00gle”. When referencing another brand, follow Google’s policy on trademarks.
- Be clear about your partnerships: If you're an official or authorized partner of another brand, ask them to mention you on their website in addition to making your relationship clear on your own website and ads. If you reference another brand but you're not an official or authorized partner, consider a disclaimer on your website and in your ads.
- Be qualified to do the work you advertise: Have all necessary certifications to provide your products and services. If you list any certifications on your website, make sure they’re up to date.
Tips for submitting your appeal
- Follow best practices: Implement the best practices you've been provided if you haven’t already.
- Explain your situation: If you're an official partner of another brand, describe your partnership and share any information that shows how you're connected.
- Share proof: This can include contracts, written agreements, a link to a credible news article that mentions about the connection and any public statements (like a social media post) from the brand or organization confirming the partnership.
- Complete verification: If asked, complete all tasks required for advertiser verification.
What you can do
Here's what you can do if your product is disapproved or if your Merchant Center account is impacted:
Products that don't comply with our policies may be disapproved and won't be eligible to serve.
- Read our Shopping policies to learn what we don't allow.
- Update your website. If your ad or listing directs to violating content, update your website to meet all policy requirements.
- Remove the violating products. You must remove non-compliant offers from your product data feed. You’ll receive an email with details about the violations.
- Update your product data in Merchant Center. Manually update your product data or wait for your automated upload schedule to run before requesting any reviews.
- Request a review or appeal. After fixing the issue or if you believe the disapproval is incorrect, you can request a review or appeal the decision.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
- If you edit your product data via your chosen upload method (such as a file) or directly in Merchant Center, the affected products will be automatically re-reviewed.
- If you remove the violating products from your feed, no further action or review request is necessary.
- Standard appeal (if you disagree with the issue)
- For certain issues, you can dispute the violation. You may need to complete additional steps, such as providing an appeal reason and/or uploading required documentation.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will be removed from Merchant Center.
- Bulk appeal (available in certain cases)
- For specific policy issues where you believe a large number of offers require review, you may be able to submit a single bulk appeal.
- ⚠️ Warning: Before submitting a bulk appeal, you must review your offers and remove any policy-violating items from your feed. Submitting a bulk appeal for a large set of offers risks immediate failure if violations are found. This may limit your ability to submit subsequent appeals for those products.
- You must remove any offers that are violating our policies from your feed before attempting to appeal in bulk.
- How to appeal in bulk: The bulk appeal option may not be available in all instances or when using third-party platforms.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Navigate to the specific issue.
- Select “View fix”
- Select the option to disagree with the issue for all products.
- Review any informational prompts that appear.
- Select “Request review” to submit the appeal.
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Option 2 - Product details page
- From the product details page, selecting “Review and fix” will display the appeal options: “I disagree with the issue” and/or “I disagree with the issue for all products”.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Third-party platforms
- If you use a third-party platform to list your products, consult that platform for available review options.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will disappear from Merchant Center.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
For most violations, we'll send you a warning email detailing the policy violation and give you 7 or 28 calendar days to fix your issue.However, we may not issue a warning for egregious policy violations.
- Read our Shopping policies to learn what we don't allow.
- Update your website. If your ad or listing directs to violating content, update your website to meet all policy requirements.
- Remove the violating products. You must remove non-compliant offers from your product data feed. You’ll receive an email with details about the violations.
- Update your product data in Merchant Center. Manually update your product data or wait for your automated upload schedule to run before requesting any reviews.
- Request a review or appeal. After fixing the issue or if you believe the disapproval is incorrect, you can request a review or appeal the decision.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
- If you edit your product data via your chosen upload method (such as a file) or directly in Merchant Center, the affected products will be automatically re-reviewed.
- If you remove the violating products from your feed, no further action or review request is necessary.
- Standard appeal (if you disagree with the issue)
- For certain issues, you can dispute the violation. You may need to complete additional steps, such as providing an appeal reason and/or uploading required documentation.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will be removed from Merchant Center.
- Bulk appeal (available in certain cases)
- For specific policy issues where you believe a large number of offers require review, you may be able to submit a single bulk appeal.
- ⚠️ Warning: Before submitting a bulk appeal, you must review your offers and remove any policy-violating items from your feed. Submitting a bulk appeal for a large set of offers risks immediate failure if violations are found. This may limit your ability to submit subsequent appeals for those products.
- You must remove any offers that are violating our policies from your feed before attempting to appeal in bulk.
- How to appeal in bulk: The bulk appeal option may not be available in all instances or when using third-party platforms.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Navigate to the specific issue.
- Select “View fix”
- Select the option to disagree with the issue for all products.
- Review any informational prompts that appear.
- Select “Request review” to submit the appeal.
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Option 2 - Product details page
- From the product details page, selecting “Review and fix” will display the appeal options: “I disagree with the issue” and/or “I disagree with the issue for all products”.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Third-party platforms
- If you use a third-party platform to list your products, consult that platform for available review options.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will disappear from Merchant Center.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
Note: Account reviews typically take 7 business days, but may take longer for complex reviews. If you remove violating products, the warning will be removed. If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will disappear from Merchant Center. In the case of account suspension, we will approve the account and allow products to be displayed again.
Your account has an issue and is operating with reserved functionality, therefore your products have limited visibility. Check your email for a notice with details about the issue and steps to resolve it. Common issues include policy violations or missing account information.
- Read our Shopping policies to learn what we don't allow.
- Update your website. If your ad or listing directs to violating content, update your website to meet all policy requirements.
- Remove the violating products. You must remove non-compliant offers from your product data feed. You’ll receive an email with details about the violations.
- Update your product data in Merchant Center. Manually update your product data or wait for your automated upload schedule to run before requesting any reviews.
- Request a review or appeal. After fixing the issue or if you believe the disapproval is incorrect, you can request a review or appeal the decision.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
- If you edit your product data via your chosen upload method (such as a file) or directly in Merchant Center, the affected products will be automatically re-reviewed.
- If you remove the violating products from your feed, no further action or review request is necessary.
- Standard appeal (if you disagree with the issue)
- For certain issues, you can dispute the violation. You may need to complete additional steps, such as providing an appeal reason and/or uploading required documentation.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will be removed from Merchant Center.
- Bulk appeal (available in certain cases)
- For specific policy issues where you believe a large number of offers require review, you may be able to submit a single bulk appeal.
- ⚠️ Warning: Before submitting a bulk appeal, you must review your offers and remove any policy-violating items from your feed. Submitting a bulk appeal for a large set of offers risks immediate failure if violations are found. This may limit your ability to submit subsequent appeals for those products.
- You must remove any offers that are violating our policies from your feed before attempting to appeal in bulk.
- How to appeal in bulk: The bulk appeal option may not be available in all instances or when using third-party platforms.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Navigate to the specific issue.
- Select “View fix”
- Select the option to disagree with the issue for all products.
- Review any informational prompts that appear.
- Select “Request review” to submit the appeal.
- Go to Merchant Center > Products > Needs attention.
- Option 2 - Product details page
- From the product details page, selecting “Review and fix” will display the appeal options: “I disagree with the issue” and/or “I disagree with the issue for all products”.
- Option 1 - Under all products
- Third-party platforms
- If you use a third-party platform to list your products, consult that platform for available review options.
- If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will disappear from Merchant Center.
- Individual product review (if you fixed the issue)
Note: Account reviews typically take 7 business days, but may take longer for complex reviews. If you remove violating products, the warning will be removed. If a review or appeal is successful, the issue will disappear from Merchant Center. In the case of account suspension, we will approve the account and allow products to be displayed again.
To ensure a safe and positive experience for customers, Google requires that retailers comply with all applicable laws and regulations in addition to our policies. It's important that you familiarize yourself with and keep up to date on these requirements for the place where your business operates, as well as any other places your ads are shown. When we find content that violates these requirements, we may block it from appearing. In cases of repeated or egregious violations, we may ban you from advertising content with us.
It’s not recommended to delete your suspended account and create a new one for the same business. Deleting an account won’t fix the suspension issue, it’ll be flagged again as the newly created account may also be suspended.