Your account has either been warned or your products have been preemptively disapproved due to this error
In this article
Explore our guided troubleshooter to learn more about reasons price mismatch occur and how to resolve the issue:
Reasons why the issue is happening
When someone clicks a Shopping ad or free product listing on Google, they expect to view the same price on your landing page as they view in the ad or listing. You received this notification because our policy reviewers found price mismatches between your product data and landing pages during a manual review of your site. You should have received an email asking you to update your product data by a certain date so that the values in your data are consistent with those on your landing page.
Common reasons for price mismatch
- Your product data is out of sync with your landing page: For example, if a sale has started or ended but the price in the feed hasn’t been updated and no longer matches your site. Ensure that updates to your site and product data happen at the same time. After updating your website, schedule an upload or use the Content API to immediately update your product data. This scheduling helps make sure Google has the same data that is on your landing page.
- If you change prices multiple times a day, or have a large amount of offers, consider using the Inventory API for faster updates.
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Multiple prices on the landing page: Shopping supports 2 prices, the price and the sale price (which are indicated using the price
[price]and sale price[sale_price][sale_price]attribute. Additionally, ensure the value for the sale price effective date[sale_price_effective_date]attribute is aligned with the timing of changes to your website. - Use of IP detection and dynamically changing prices: Don’t change the price of your product on your landing page based on a user’s location. Additionally, do not change price based on cookies, browsers, devices, or any other factor. If you only target certain locations within a country, use regional pricing and availability.
- Minimum order quantity and bulk products: If the shopper must purchase a minimum number of products, such as 10, list the total price for 10 products. Don’t submit the price for a single product if a minimum number of products is required.
- Title, description, or image mismatch: Make sure that the product featured in your title, description, and image matches the price you submit. For example, if the product description mentions “an engraved product” and the image features a customized product with an engraving, make sure the price in the feed includes engraving fees.
- Variant preselection: Ensure each variant in the feed has a URL that loads to a pre-populated page of that variant. For example, if you advertise a premium flower bouquet, make sure the price in your feed is for the premium variant and the same premium variant is preselected on the landing page.
- Price ranges: If you’re displaying a price range for a product on your website’s landing page, the price attribute should capture the cheapest value of the range.
- Handling fees: If you have additional logistical fees, rather than bundling them into the price variant, list them on the site as "shipping", "delivery", "handling", "logistics", or "carrier" and bundle the cost into the shipping
[shipping]attribute. - Dynamic population and page load times: If a price is calculated dynamically and then added to the landing page, or if the page has a slow load time, the crawlers may miss the final price. Make sure to load your price on the landing page immediately.
- Membership price: Make sure that any user in the target country can buy the product for the submitted price without paying for a membership. Membership prices are allowed in ads or listings only if the following conditions are met:
- There's no cost to sign up, and membership is available to everyone with no exceptions.
- The signup process is straightforward and can be completed on the landing page or during checkout.
- The discounted price with membership is clearly displayed on the landing page.
- Discount price: Make sure that any user in the target country can buy the product for the submitted discounted price. Discount prices are allowed in ads or listings only if the following conditions are met:
- The price after discount, coupons, or vouchers should be available for everyone with no exceptions.
- The discounted price is clearly displayed on the landing page.
How to fix this issue
This section provides next steps for fixing your price mismatch issues.
Step 1: Ensure that prices in your product data match those on your landing pages
Investigate your update process to find what could be causing the problem:
- Check the warning email for the examples of products that are affected.
- These products were checked by our reviewers and flagged for price mismatch. Use these examples to look for a common issue with similar items in your product data and fix them to ensure all of them are matching price.
- After you address the problem, update the price
[price]attribute in your product data to match your landing page.
Step 2: Resubmit your product data
- After you’ve updated your product data, resubmit it using one of these methods:
- Upload a feed
- Submit through the Content API
- If you change prices multiple times a day, or have a large amount of offers, consider using the Inventory API for faster updates.
- Import content from an ecommerce platform
Step 3: Request a review
- If your account is currently warned, and you have fixed the issue, you can request a courtesy review on the account, before the deadline. However, Google will perform a manual review once the deadline has passed.
- If your account is already enforced with a preemptive item disapproval, and you have fixed the issue, you can request a review for the account by selecting I fixed the issue. If you disagree with the issue and have not made any fix, you can request a review with I disagree with the issue. Note that failing this review will place the account in a cooldown period of 7 business days before a new review can be requested.
Note: If you use a third-party platform to list your products, you may also be able to go to your third-party application to request a review.
If you’re working with a third-party platform, some of these instructions may not apply to you. Refer to your third-party platform for instructions on how to resolve the issue and request a review. Learn how to find support if you use a non-Google platform.
Frequently asked questions
This section provides answers to common questions about price mismatch.
FAQs for price mismatch
- What should I know before I submit my account for review?
- The review will take 7 business days to complete.
- The only way to check if your entire account is compliant is by requesting a review in Merchant Center. Reaching out to the support team will not trigger an account review.
- If the review fails or if the review button is not available, wait for the warning deadline for the manual review to happen. The review will happen automatically. There is no need to contact support.
- There is no way to receive or request an extension on the enforcement deadline in your email.
- There is no exhaustive list of disapproved examples to be shared so you should make sure prices are matching in the feed, landing page and microdata (if implemented).
- How can I avoid recurring issues with price mismatch?
- If your product prices are updated frequently, you may want to set up a schedule for product data uploads from a file, or set up the Content API for Shopping, as these will regularly update your prices in Merchant Center automatically.
- Learn more about price best practices
- Can you help me with setting up the microdata based on product variants?
- Learn how to set up structured data for Merchant Center.
- For general guidelines for structured data beyond your Merchant Center product data, visit schema.org's Getting started guide.
- You can also use the Rich Results Test tool to check your microdata set up.
- How do I use Regional Availability and Pricing (RAAP)?
- Regional availability and pricing lets you show product availability and variable pricing based on your business presence and the location of your customer base by providing regional overrides for the national availability and/or pricing.
- Learn more about setting up regional availability and pricing