When google suspends you for misrepresentation how do you find out exactly what was flagged. I’ve been working on this for months now and I’ve fixed everything I can think of and I appeal and am still suspended. Is there a way for a manual review with exact explanations. I don’t wont to get a final suspension as I’ve already appealed twice.
Hello whatlalaloves, thank you for your question and welcome to the Shopify AMA. I’m your host Emmanuel from FeedArmy.
First, important to understand upfront, support will almost never tell you specifically what to fix. That’s just the reality of how these suspensions work. As a result the burden is entirely on you to audit everything proactively. This has been the case since 2020 when Google changed it’s policy regarding helping out due to bad actors, which means it’s a lot harder for honest merchants.
So the only way to resolve a suspension, is by fixing all possible issues, this can be done by checking all the details out below. Please do not request a review before you resolve all potential issues, as you have limited number of reviews available, after that, it’s a permanent ban.
Before you do anything else, read these:
Start here and work through all of them carefully:
Also watch these community guides, they are very helpful:
And the official policy topic hubs:
Misrepresentation almost always comes down to real-world discrepancies.
This policy is not just about your website or feed, it’s about whether what you’re representing online accurately matches reality. The policy teams look at:
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The physical location of the business owner
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Physical inventory, what is actually in stock and ready to ship
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How all of these real-world details have been represented over time, both on the website and inside the account
What to fix on the website, do all of this before considering an appeal (as well as reading the links above):
Contact & trust signals (critical):
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Every page footer and the Contact Us page must clearly display: business name, phone number, email on your own domain (not Gmail, not Yahoo), exact physical street address, business hours, and links to all business social media profiles
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The address must exactly match a government-issued ID, passport, or business tax document, it must be where the merchant owner is physically present and operating during posted business hours
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All of this must be clearly visible and not blocked by pop-ups, overlays, or banners, especially during checkout
Policies, all must reflect real-world operations:
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Privacy Policy
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Terms of Service
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Payment Policy
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Shipping Policy
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Delivery Policy
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Returns & Refund Policy
Each one must accurately describe how the business actually operates. Check them on multiple browsers and devices to ensure they are accessible everywhere.
Pricing and offers:
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Remove all sales and promotions, only one price per product, on one landing page
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No countdown timers, urgency overlays, or anything that could be interpreted as false scarcity
Inventory:
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Remove every product that is not 100% confirmed in stock and ready to ship right now
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Availability and shipping details in your feed must reflect actual physical inventory, and your website info visually, not estimated or dropshipped timelines
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Do not reintroduce out-of-stock products until you have had at least 3 clean months with no policy flags
Other website housekeeping:
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Remove all pop-ups and overlays, anything that interrupts normal browsing
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Ensure there is only one active website and only one Merchant Center account, ever
Targeting and account scope, keep it simple while you recover:
Target only your home country, where the merchant owner physically lives and operates, until you have had at least 3 consecutive clean months with no policy issues flagged.
Order history can sometimes help:
Having a documented record of completed orders, shipments, returns, and refunds, approximately 300 orders over 3 to 6 months, within your home country can sometimes help demonstrate legitimacy during review. It’s not always decisive, but it can support your case.
On appeals, read this carefully:
You typically only get two or three appeals before the account is permanently banned with no further reviews considered.
Do not submit an appeal:
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Just to ask what is wrong
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To request more information
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Before all possible issues have been fixed
When you do submit, you need to be able to summarize every action you took in a few short, clear sentences. If you cannot do that, you are not ready.
Consider resubmitting your full in-stock inventory after all changes, this can help trigger an automated review without using an appeal.
One final and important note:
If the real-world detail causing the suspension cannot actually be changed, or if the policy teams already have a record of past discrepancies, the suspension may not be fixable. The merchant may not be eligible to continue using Merchant Center or any related Google system. The dedicated policy teams have final say, and that decision is theirs alone.
Do the work thoroughly, be honest about your real-world situation, and only appeal when everything is genuinely in order.
One extra angle to check before using another appeal: look at what Googlebot and a first-time visitor actually see, not just what the site looks like while you are logged in.
For misrepresentation cases with no specific explanation, I would compare 3 affected product URLs across four places: the product feed, the live product page, the JSON-LD/Product schema, and checkout. Price, sale price, availability, shipping time, returns wording, and business/contact details all need to tell the same story.
Also check after any theme or app changes. Shopify apps can change schema, variant URLs, canonical tags, or price display without it being obvious in the admin. If you have already appealed twice, I would not send another review until you have a dated change log and screenshots proving the current version is stable.