Google Merchant suspension for "Website needs improvement"

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1

Good afternoon all,

Who do I have to bribe or kiss up to [email removed] Google to get this working?

I’ve lost money hand over fist since the suspension in January.

my website is https://brads-toysar.myshopify.com

Back in January, Google suspended our Merchant Account, citing the following:

  • Misrepresentation - Their super-powerful AI had somehow confused a spaceship toy with a live spider, resulting in a ridiculous suspension. This took most of a week back and forth, before I simply deleted the item. The problems remained.
  • Policy violation - generic email responses from Google Support got me nowhere. I re-wrote the policies from start to finish, and seemed to make progress.
  • Missing GTIN - I’ve checked online photos of packaged versions of the same figures to confirm the GTIN #. some were still refused. I’ve emailed the links of the online sources to Google support, and they’ve claimed they have no way to control what their AI deems as wrong. This is incomprehensible.
  • Invalid GTIN - I’ve checked online photos of packaged versions of the same figures to confirm the GTIN #. some were still refused. I’ve emailed the links of the online sources to Google support, and they’ve claimed they have no way to control what their AI deems as wrong. This is incomprehensible.
  • Website needs improvement - this is the one where I’ve been hung up on the most. Google simply will not tell me what they found as a problem. They keep sending me generic responses about “check for a broken link” or “unformatted text” or “placeholder images” or “generic information”. I’ve gone through every item, and confirmed I have good photos for every item. I’ve checked GeoPeeker and confirmed Singapore was a problem. However, when I showed Google support that GeoPeeker can’t communicate with it’s own host server, they dropped that as a problem. I don’t feel that I should have to be troubleshooting Google’s own tools for this. I’ve gone back and forth with Google support, literally BEGGING them to tell me what exactly they found in their review. Obviously something was found that was deemed noncompliant. Yet months later, they still will not tell me.

How do y’all do it? I’ve lost an estimated $2500 in sales based upon sales per month leading up to the suspension. My business is crumbling around me.

Even Shopify support said it may be an idea to consider Tiktok ads rather than Google.

Help… please

2

I don’t recommend you use a myshopify.com subdomain. Instead have your own top level domain. For example bradstoys.com

If you are using auto currency conversion disable this.

What you sell seems to be a used product, if so, make sure you label them as used.

The pirctures of the proudcts are blury, make sure to take professional pictures.

Your descriptions are too short, make sure its 500 to 5000 characters

Missing business details in the footer.

Don’t use @yahoo .com as your email, instead make sure it matches your domain name.

These are just examples, and you may have a lot more issues. So to find more issues, check the guides and policies below, and compare it against your website.

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150127?hl=en
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6363310/follow-the-merchant-center-guidelines
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7052112
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/4752265
https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/13693865
https://support.google.com/google-ads/community-guide/241068758

3

Thank you. I didn’t receive email reporting that you had replied. I will investigate.

I never knew that I shouldn’t use the MyShopify domain.

And Google’s support has been less than lackluster in regard to specific causes.

4

Thank you again.

I’ve now updated every item description on my site.

I’m working to get a proper domain name. No one ever told me I couldn’t use the MyShopify.com page for business.

I have questions about these topics you mentioned.

If you are using auto currency conversion disable this. Where do I find this please?

Missing business details in the footer. What details please?

Thank you

5

Deleting every item and recreating everything from the ground up is just flatly not an option

6

For currency conversion, contact shopify support.

For business details, for example, address, email, businss name, phone number, business hours.

7

Good evening. I’m confused by “Missing business details in the footer”.

I’ve just checked and confirmed that the policies are already linked at the bottom of the landing page.

What are you referring to please? Please see the attachment for visual confirmation.

Thank you!

8

And I have FINALLY gotten actionable information.

It was s combination of these:

  • Item descriptions were too short. Apparently this is insufficient. “This item is loose but complete” or “This item is loose and incomplete, missing [missing items listed here]”. I’ve been told now that I need around 500 words for an item description.
  • I had categories / collections without items placed in them yet. I didn’t know that was a no-no. Google considers that misleading.
  • Putting a password on the site for vacation is a GREAT WAY to get Google to block every item you have from sync. That happened at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So this is resolved.