Google Merchant Center disapproved your products: the real reasons and how to fix each one

It usually goes like this. A small shop selling, say, handmade ceramics connects its product feed to Google Merchant Center on a Monday. By Wednesday most of the sixty products show Disapproved: some for a price mismatch, some for a missing GTIN, a few for the picture. The owner fixes a handful by hand, and on Friday the whole account turns red with Account suspended: Misrepresentation and no explanation beyond a link to the policy.

Merchant forums are full of this story, and the frustrating part is the same every time: Google rarely says which page or which detail set it off. The good news is that the causes repeat. If you work through them in order, product issues first and the account second, most shops get back.

Merchant Center reports two kinds of trouble, and they are fixed differently. Both are listed under Products, Needs attention; account-level ones sit behind View setup and policy issues.

What you see: "Mismatched product price", or in older accounts and most forum threads "Mismatched value (page crawl) [price]".

Why: Googlebot visits your product page and compares the price there, and in the page's structured data, with the price in your feed. If they differ, the item is disapproved. Google's help page on price mismatches lists the usual causes:

• Your site's prices change more often than the feed is refreshed, for example during a sale.
• The structured data on the page carries a different price from the one the shopper sees, often an old theme or app writing its own markup.
• The price is drawn by JavaScript after the page loads, so the crawler and a shopper see different numbers or currencies.
• A sale price with the wrong start or end date or time zone.
• Variants at different prices that all point at the same product address, so the crawler reads the default variant's price for every one of them.

1. 1

   Open one disapproved item and its page side by side

   Compare the feed price with what a logged-out visitor sees, in a private window, and with the price in the page's structured data (Google's Rich Results Test shows it).

2. 2

   Fix the source, not the symptom

   If the feed is stale, fetch it more often: Google recommends scheduled fetches or the Merchant API. If the markup is wrong, fix the theme or turn off the app that adds a second Product block.

3. 3

   Wait for the recrawl

   Google says it rechecks disapproved items automatically over the next few hours or days, and approves them once the prices match. You can also request a website check from the item.

What you see: "Mismatched value (page crawl) [availability]", or "Mismatched regional availability" when you use regional stock.

Why: the same comparison as price, applied to stock. The feed says in stock, the page (or its structured data) says sold out, or the reverse. Merchants on forums most often trace it to a variant that sold out while the feed still listed it, or to structured data that reports the whole product as in stock while one variant is not. Google's page on regional availability adds that a mismatch in one region disapproves the whole product.

Fix: make the feed carry stock per variant, refresh it at least daily, and check that the page's structured data says the same thing as the visible stock message for the variant the link opens.

What you see: "Missing or incorrect GTIN", or a warning that performance is limited because identifiers are missing.

Why: a GTIN is the barcode number a manufacturer registers for a product (EAN in Europe, UPC in North America). Google's identifier page asks for either an accurate GTIN, or a brand together with an MPN. Branded goods you resell almost always have one. Things you make yourself, one-of-a-kind or vintage items usually do not.

• You resell a branded product: copy the GTIN from the box or the supplier's price list into the feed. Do not invent one or reuse one product's code for another.
• You make the product: leave GTIN empty, put your shop or label in brand, and set identifier exists to no.
• Do not say no when a code exists. Google can match the product to its catalogue, and an item marked as having no identifier while it does can be disapproved.
• Spaces and letters break a GTIN. Your own internal codes belong in SKU or MPN, not in GTIN.

What you see: "Missing shipping costs" on items, and at account level "Missing return and refund policy on your online store".

Shipping: Google's shipping page says the items stay disapproved until each one has a shipping cost. The simplest fix is account-wide: set your rates once under shipping and returns in Merchant Center, for every country you sell to, and use the per-item shipping field only for exceptions. The cost you enter must match what your checkout charges.

Returns: this one catches people out because there are two places. Google's returns page wants a returns and refund policy on your website, linked from the footer of every page, with the return window, the condition items must be in and how to send them back. If you do not accept returns, say so plainly. Separately, Merchant Center has its own return policy settings. Merchants report reviews failing until the two say the same thing, so copy the numbers from one to the other.

Google notes that changing the image address, not just the file behind it, gets the new picture picked up sooner.

• Promotional overlay. Text, sale badges, watermarks or logos on the main image get the item disapproved. Google can remove some overlays for you with automatic image improvements, but the reliable fix is a clean main image; put the sale in the price instead.
• Generic placeholder. A "no image available" picture or your logo instead of the product is not allowed, per Google's placeholder page. Leave products without real photos out of the feed until they have one.
• Image cannot be fetched. Pictures behind a login, blocked by robots.txt or very slow to load fail too. Open the image address from the feed in a private window to check.

Misrepresentation is the policy behind most whole-account suspensions. It is about trust: whether a shopper could be misled about who you are, what they will pay or what happens after they pay. Google lists things such as a false business name or contact details, hiding where you are or where goods ship from, and not disclosing the total price, shipping costs, refund conditions or fees before checkout.

Google's store requirements add the basics: a fixed displayed price, a conventional payment method in a secure checkout, buying directly on your site, and your purchase conditions such as returns disclosed. Merchants who got reinstated describe going through a list like this one:

• A real way to reach you: a contact page with an email on your own domain, a phone number if you have one, and a physical address that matches the one in Merchant Center and your business registration.
• The same business everywhere: the name in Merchant Center, on the site, on invoices and in the footer should be the same. One business, one website, one account.
• Policies in the footer of every page: returns and refunds, shipping (cost and time), terms and privacy. Not hidden in an FAQ.
• No surprises at checkout: shipping cost visible before payment, no fee that appears only at the last step, prices with tax as your country requires.
• No unfinished pages: demo products, lorem ipsum, broken links, empty categories or "coming soon" sections read as an unfinished or fake shop.
• Claims you can back up: fake countdowns, invented discounts against a price you never charged, or badges you have not earned are what the policy calls unreliable claims.
• Every product issue fixed first. A long list of price and stock mismatches looks to Google like a shop that cannot be trusted with its own data.

Merchants also report that opening a second Merchant Center account for the same domain while one is suspended makes things worse. Fix and appeal the account you have.

1. 1

   Fix everything before you press the button

   Product issues, policies, contact details, checkout. A review that fails costs you one of your attempts.

2. 2

   Request the review from the right place

   For an account issue, go to Products, Needs attention, View setup and policy issues, and mark it as fixed. For an item, use Fix on the item and ask for a website check.

3. 3

   Wait the full time

   Google says a review can take up to 7 business days. Asking again in the meantime does not speed it up.

4. 4

   Know the cool-down

   According to Google's review rules, if the issue is not resolved by the second attempt a one-week cool-down may begin, it can grow with each failed review, and support cannot shorten it. That is why the first attempt should be a complete one.

Every published shop has a shopping feed at /products.xml, the format Merchant Center reads; copy its address from Settings, Search engines. It is built from the same data as the product pages: one item per variant, at the price a guest pays with your promotions applied, and stock as the page shows it. A barcode of 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits goes out as the GTIN; anything else is sent as having no identifier, so add the real barcode to products you resell. The product pages describe each variant's price and stock in structured data, and your returns policy and delivery once you fill them in on the same screen.

The feed does not carry shipping or return settings, so set those in Merchant Center itself, matching your shipping methods. Under Settings, Policies you can write a returns policy from a starting draft; checkout links it under the pay button, and the footer links the terms, privacy policy and contact page on every shop. Demo and unpublished shops answer the feed with nothing, so publish before connecting. To get your products into a shop in the first place, see product import.