Critical: Backend sync failure causing 6K phantom products in GMC - Unresolved since December GMC suspension

Technical Q&A
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1

GMC suspended in December

Since then: Support has deflected to third-party apps (Printful, Syncee, GMC) instead of investigating Shopify’s backend
Core issue: 40 products in Shopify showing as 6K+ in Google Merchant Center
Phantom variants multiplying actual product count
Ghost products deleted in December still appearing in feed
Thorough analysis provided proving issues are within the Shopify environment, not my shop configuration
Apps are NOT the cause—auto-sync disabled, issue persists
Today alone: 5+ hours, 5 different support contacts, still no engineering escalation

Has anyone else experienced similar backend sync/cache issues with GMC feed without getting an actual solution from Support? How did you get proper technical escalation?

2

Hi R4B,

Support likely sees the correct count (40 products) in Shopify Admin and assumes everything is fine. The real issue is a mismatch between Shopify’s core database and the Google feed generation service used by the native Google channel.

Rapid create/delete cycles from apps like Printful or Syncee can leave stale records in the feed pipeline. Even after products and variants are deleted, their feed entries can remain stuck. The native Google channel is a black box, so you cannot flush or rebuild this cache manually.

The practical workaround is to bypass Shopify’s native Content API sync.

Recommended fix:

Disconnect the Shopify Content API feed in Google Merchant Center.

Switch to a Scheduled Fetch feed.

Generate a clean feed yourself:

Query Shopify Admin API for products with status=active.

Export only real products into a valid XML or CSV Google feed.

Host it at a stable URL (S3 or any server).

Point GMC to this file.

This forces Google to ingest only what exists now and ignores Shopify’s corrupted feed cache. Once reprocessed, the phantom 6K products should disappear.

Alex

3

i am hearing this error for the first time. can you still share what’s the method for product uploading you are using?

is the google and youtube app, or something else?

4

Hi Alex,

thank you, just finished doing all that, products are ‘zero’ now. The suspension is still there. Found another ‘warning’ detail. shipping details: as my online store is based in the Netherlands, i should be able to set shipping location to the Netherlands. GMC only gives options: US, FRance and GErmany, which would apply in some cases (on demand, and POD) but according to legal compliance it should be set to the Netherlands. Shopify website provides exact details per product and it’s shipping and delivery (as well as return) details.

Would you have any advice on that as well? Am already grateful :slight_smile: so don’t feel obligated to answer.

All the above is really disheartening and seems almost impossible to break through the ‘automated responses’ from Google. Thinking AI should be used where it ‘supports’ not blocks.

Again, thank you Alex.

5

Hi Amlani,

i had set the GMC (all four options) to automated. Though Shopify had issues in december with the platform, noticed as I was still making changes to the shop, that there were constant resets of changes i had saved. Which made me reach out to support.

The status of that is appaerently what got stuck in GMC as well.

6

Glad the product count is fixed. For the shipping issue, the UI is limited by the feed configuration.
Fix:
Products > Feeds > [Your Feed] > Settings
Make sure Netherlands is explicitly added as a Target Country.

7

Hi Alsok, went through all the shipping setups again, per market, and per country within the market. Setup is up to par. Thinking this might be due to the non-syncing issue as well. As I set up the store during a major outage and then the GMC also during an outage as i later found out. Still experiencing issues, support keeps deflecting, but now everything has been set correcly, double/tripple checked and it should be engineering to verify why the syncing is not done properly.

Thank you very much for replying really appreciated!!

8

For all future merchants, for actual support issues you MUST contact shopify support directly and just wait/roll-the-dice.
https://help.shopify.com/en → Chat with a human in the lower corner.

These are the peer-to-peer forums, shopify-support have pretty much all but pulled stakes.
So external partners,contributors CAN NOT finished highly internal issues like this at all.
All we can do is recommend troubleshooting steps up to a certain point but after that on things like this the last-miles are all shopify-internal sandbox or just a matter or wait & see.

Sometimes you do need to wait for them to send you and update about the issue, or wait a few days and hope you get a a different shift of tier0 support or dumb luck into someone knowledge AND has power AND the will to act on it /sigh.

9

Contacting support for the suspension will not work. Because Google doesn’t offer support once you are suspended.

Regarding why you are seeing 6k in GMC, that is most likely because you do have variants for each product, and Google lists each unique variant as a new product, this is a normal behavior.

Please note that submitting print on demand products to GMC will most likely get you suspended, that is because products must be stocked, and as POD is not a stocked product in it’s finished form, you will get suspended.

In very rare cases POD can get approved if you have a huge amount of reviews.

Reference: Misrepresentation - Google Merchant Center Help

Now, if you still want to try and get approved, but I doubt you will, have a look at the guides and policies below:

10

You seem to have done a lot of work. Everything except search why other people get suspended. The answers are here. Hundreds of posts are begging you. They are yelling “Read Me!” :books:

11

I hear you and understand that, but a couple of days turning into weeks, looks to me like there there is no follow up, ‘or as the mood takes me’

12

appreciate your copy/paste.. though assuming i did not read? Point made is that the verification is done completely automatically, the appeal is done automatically as well. Without actually verifying, the email response follows a second after you have sent the appeal. How can the verification result in an actual validated verification if the process is already wrong. And on a site note, how many ‘non-thrustworthy’ adds, products and websites are actually promoted by google that are not legit! All legal and tax compliance information is set up according to actual information and registrations. These were uploaded, sent again with the attached documents. I can read all the documentation in the world, if the process is not correct, that is not going to change the outcome.

Thank you for your response.

14

that’s exactly what i was looking for, thank you. All the documentation did mention ‘manual review’ but the GMC must have hidden this option really well. It’s mentioned, but so far did not find the actual link or address.

16

Did that, still waiting for a response, thinking that after a week i might have to open another case.

17

Could you kindly share a screenshot where I copy/pasted, thank you.

If you instead meant I pasted the links, yes, I hope you understand that I can’t share links without copying the link, then pasting the link.

And even if you look at the links, you will notice extensive guides written by myself. I share this with all that are suspended, due to the nature of suspensions. Because Google doesn’t share what exactly the suspension reason is, to resolve the suspension you need to fix all possible reasons.

The process of verification is done by a lot of merchants, and only after you have been suspended once, the verification was in place for now maybe 1.5 years, because Google is dealing with a lot of fake businesses, so yes that means honest merchants have to go an extra step to verify who they are.

If all is legally correct and Google still rejected the verification, that means something in your business settings here: Promote Your Business with Merchant Center - Google for Retail

Is different, or incorrect, or something. So I recommend double checking everything between the documents you submit and the details you added, also make sure this matches on your website.

I understand you are frustrated about the process, but accusing someone of copy pasting without demonstrating where or what I copied. You might find if you look at the history of my posts I am a well established specialist in Google Shopping. I do montly AMA’s on Shopify, and I am also a Google Ads Diamond Product Expert. And every single day, I go on the internet and try to help merchants. Yes, this means sharing the same links for the same topical questions. It would be rather strange if I shared different policies and guides for the same question.

But I get it, you are annoyed at Google, I hope you find the time to separate genuine users helping other users, vs AI replies, vs copy past people. And with the rise of AI I can understand it is hard to know who is genuine and who is not.

In any case if you have any questions, you want real guidance, do feel free to ask on the community.

18

Emmanuel, the advise from your reply that is relevant: Please note that submitting print on demand products to GMC will most likely get you suspended, that is because products must be stocked, and as POD is not a stocked product in it’s finished form, you will get suspended.

In very rare cases POD can get approved if you have a huge amount of reviews.” This is the take-away from your response. Thank you, will de-activate these from the GMC.

19

Though, how do you explain the following: POD + GMC is standard practice (provably allowed)

    1. POD + GMC is standard practice (provably allowed)

    2. My issue is backend corruption, not POD policy violation

    3. Community replies should help, and even as i responded to previous to quick, really doubting the POD/GMC. I’ve implemented one of the other users advice, at least the store is representing adequate numbers now. Multiplication was done by Shopify.

    4. The still in cache ‘ items’ clearly points to a syncing issue within shopify, GMC just ‘takes the info from Shopify’. Which is why I am adamant and requested a root/cause.

  2. Being gaslighted by support, saying there is no outage, while my screen shows a pop up that there is a outage issue, data not loading is really doubting the competency of support. If level 0 is not able to answer, it should move to the next level. TIckets that are open for more than 3 days should be flagged automatically.

20

non-discussion, i am not accusing you of anything, the copy/paste referred to the extensive list. not who wrote this, and yes i did see your bio. The issue i have is that I’m fine with the extra mile, as long as the process to go through that is transparent, including the related process. Which is not the case. My bio is different from yours, and not relevant to post as i am just a user, but if you want to question me on IFRS, business processes and the underlying architecture/sw applications that need to adhere to the same compliance, rules and regulations as the business processes as they are defined. Then be my guest. IT should mirror the business and be in alignment. Which it is not. Business strategy and operations set up in one way, IT in another is not alignment, is not adhering to overall compliance, rules and regulations and least of all transparent. Transparency is the key word. Personal opinion, whether it’s Google or one of the others, process not working=question the process.

21

The relevance is that your title of this community is GMC suspended in December

A suspension most likely referring to misrepresentation, and do let me know if I am wrong. If correct, then the initial suspension is not due to verification of identity, but misrepresentation. Verification of identity, as far as I have seen this, happens after getting a misrepresentation suspension not before.

This means the relevance of POD is referring to 1 of the most likely reasons why you where originally suspended.

And this is in reference to the following policy: Misrepresentation - Google Merchant Center Help

22

No, as you have already discovered, Google is not transparent with the process. As otherwise you and everyone else who is suspended would have nothing to complain about.

I am not here to defend Google, or it’s processes, in fact I dislike the whole company. And have been vocal about this for very long, and that is why I have hundreds of videos and articles explaining how to fix issues, saving users a ton of time and frustration.

If you want to question the process, that is fine. I am not here to debate that.

I am just here to point merchants in the right direction, and yes in 1 or 2 cases per year, and I answer hundres of questions every month, I do get a merchant or user that sends there frustrations at me, but that is fine. I have shared what I believe is helpful, from my knowledge.

I will leave at this, I hope you see that I am a genuine person. But I am not Google’s middleman to get frustrated at, I am just here to share my knowledge with others.