Google Merchant Centre - Suspension Due to Parked Site

[FernandFriends]

Hi,

Our Google Merchant Centre Account keeps being suspended due to parked site / no items on site, and I have no idea why.

The first time this happened I contacted Google Support who gave a fairly "stock" answer:

Please be advised that Google Shopping does not allow the promotion of websites that do not provide the users with unique and valuable content on the landing page domain. Let me explain this further to you and the following are some examples:

• Parked domain: Make sure that your site provides users with unique and valuable content on the landing page domain, and isn’t parked displaying only ads and links.
• If your registration expired, please renew it in order to start advertising the site again.
• If your site has experienced a temporary disruption in service, make sure that your site is properly running again.
• Make sure that your website provides users with unique, valuable content and isn't full of advertising listings and links.
  
  

After this, I appealed and my account was resuspended and working fine, but last night around midnight it was suspended again. I would really appreciate it if anyone could help shed some light on the matter?

The link to our site is here: www.fernandfriends.co.uk We have been selling products all week.

Many thanks,

Rob

[EmmanuelFlossie]

While you may be approved for one reason, you may be suspended for another. Check what message Google gave you.

If you can't find it, go to Google Merchant Center > top right corner > click on the email icon.

[FernandFriends]

Hi Emmanuel,

Thank you for that info, I had a look to narrow it down and I've been suspended due to "No Products on website".

I have no idea why this might be happening as I have products listed and they show up on my Google Merchant centre too.

Many thanks,

Rob

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Yes that is odd, please note while you may have temporarily had this issue when Google checked your website, Google may have found more policy violations.

To help you check these, here is a list:

I recommend having a look at the following policies:

Follow the Merchant Center guidelines: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6363310
Make sure to read all linked and referenced policies.

Everything mentioned below is referenced in the above documentation. However, these are the second most important policies that you need to comply.

Follow the data feed requirements: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112
Read all attribute policies

Common issues are not complying with landing page requirements: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/4752265

Make sure what you sell is allowed: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6149970

Check that your checkout complies: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/9158778

That you have added:
refund page
returns page
delivery / shipping page
privacy policy
terms and conditions
disclaimer
Reference: https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/4752265

Make sure you do not sell face mask or PPE
Reference: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6015406#:~:text=Sensitive%20events
For update info: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9811449

Make sure you do not copy paste images or text from other sites.

Don't have multiple websites in the same niche

Make sure you don't have multiple disapproved websites or accounts, this is called circomventing policy violation.
Reference: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020954

You have a track record of order fulfillment, for example honest reviews.

You can ask Google for specific examples of policy violation. To do so ask here and check the box, I need more info : https://support.google.com/merchants/contact/suspended

Hope this helps.

[FernandFriends]

Hi Emmanuel,

Thank you for all the advice,  I really appreciate it!

In the end, I checked all of those points and all was in order. I submitted another review request and it was approved fairly quickly.

I have a feeling it was to do with when Google first crawled my page, and that it was working from the old data. All is working well now and fingers crossed I won't be suspended again!

Best,

Rob

[zveclub]

Hey, Fernand

When I applied for GMC, I encountered the same problem as you, and now they suspended my account because of the parked domain. Can you tell me how you  active the account?

I would be very grateful if you could help me.

Best regards,

Betty 

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Make sure you have no template, no ipsom lorem text, broken website links etc. These are the usual culprits for this type of suspension.

[zveclub]

Hello,

Thanks for replying me . I found out the reason of the Parked domain. I bound two domain with Shopify. One is i-zve.com and this website established a long time ago and has not been used anymore. Searching for i-zve in google will show two URLs showing 404. If I disconnected this domain in shopify's, can this problem be solved?

Best regards,

betty

[EmmanuelFlossie]

I recommend you try.

And then check the data in Google Merchant Center.

[foxmox]

i have the same problem,

i contacted google support they checked the website and they say the products exist and i must come back after 48 hours !

any suggestion please ?

[EmmanuelFlossie]

If you have followed my previous suggestions and it does not work, then I recommend contact Google and ask for examples of issues.

[zveclub]

ok,thanks for your reply

[lucas05021]

Did you solve this problem?

[foxmox]

not yet, i'm waiting for 3 business days.

[terta]

I have the same issue , and I made the request for the review three times now and i had the same reply and i contact them they told me should raise the request again but i don't know what is the real issue ( https://www.jogoss.com )

[EmmanuelFlossie]

If you have followed all my recommendations, then most likely the issue is trust. Google requires a certain amount of trust signals from the merchant to be eligible. So I recommend you work on this for set duration and then try again once you know your trust has increased.

[msk486]

I am having a similar problem. My site was temporarily offline in early February, which I think caused the initial suspension. But my site is back online and working normally, and google has rejected two review requests. I asked customer service to review my site, and was told that it seemed to be in compliance. The only advice was to request another review. I have a legitimate ecommerce site with 82 products for sale. I am really unsure why Google keeps determining that my site is parked. What is my recourse at this point? My url is www.pinsnickety.com. I would welcome any advice.

[Buchgeister]

If your site is new and not indexed by Google then Google Merchant will not find it or if an old site (for example the parking site) is indexed, then it will find the old one. Google seems to check only the page which is in the index and not the current one on your server.

First you have to ensure that your current page is indexed and then you can continue with Google Merchant. 

[EmmanuelFlossie]

There is no indexing requirement. You can submit a data feed and get it approved in Google Merchant Center. No index, is not linked to parked site.

[Buchgeister]

Okay, then something is really weird here. Google is not indexing my site and merchant center says, there are no products on my shop. The domain is associated with shopify and there are more than 28.000 products online. There is no explanation from Google, why they come to that conclusion. 

I added my domain to the google search console two weeks ago and there is still nothing indexed. The sitemaps are accepted but shows 0 pages found. Maybe it is because the sitemap referres just to some another sitemaps. 

Everything gets more and more complex and nobody knows what is going on. Technology overkill in my opinion.

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Check your robots.txt maybe something was added that broke your discovery.

Regarding GMC, if you imported data via a webcrawler, you may have also removed your structured data or it is broken. Check this as well: https://search.google.com/test/rich-results

[Buchgeister]

What could be wrong with the robots.txt file provided from Shopify?

https://favorite-books.de/robots.txt

[Buchgeister]

As soon as Google indexed my site, the Google Merchant check succeeded. I made no other changes.

So I am sure that it is important to add the shop to the Google Search Console first and wait until the site is ndexed by google before you start adding it to the Google Merchant Center.