AM A misrepresentation suspension is the Merchant Center problem store owners fear most, and for good reason. Google treats misrepresentation as an egregious violation. That means it can suspend an account on detection with no warning period, and its policy says accounts are reinstated only in compelling circumstances. The notice itself rarely tells you what exactly triggered it.
The good news is that most suspensions on legitimate stores come from a short list of fixable gaps: missing contact information, thin or copied policies, a business identity Google cannot confirm, or data that does not match the website. This guide covers what the policy covers, a store-side checklist, how to request a review, and the mistakes that make things worse.
What misrepresentation means in Merchant Center
Google's misrepresentation policy groups violations into a few types. Knowing which one applies helps you focus your fixes.
- Unacceptable business practices: hiding or misrepresenting information about your business or products, offering products you cannot deliver, impersonating a brand or presenting a false identity, or collecting user information deceptively.
- Misleading or unrealistic offers: false claims, improbable results such as miracle cures, or implying an affiliation or endorsement you do not have.
- Omission of relevant information: not clearly disclosing total costs, payment terms, shipping, returns or refund conditions.
- Unavailable offers: promoting products that are not in stock or deals that have ended.
In practice, Google is asking one question: would a shopper who lands on this store have an accurate picture of who they are buying from, what they will pay and what happens if something goes wrong? When the answer is unclear, the system errs toward suspension.
Common causes on real stores
These are the patterns that show up again and again on suspended accounts, especially new Shopify and WooCommerce stores and dropshipping stores:
- No phone number, no address, or only a contact form with no business name anywhere on the site.
- Policy pages generated from a template and never edited, still containing placeholder text or another store's name.
- A business name in Merchant Center that differs from the name in the site footer, the checkout and the payment descriptor.
- Delivery times on the site that ignore real shipping times from overseas suppliers.
- Compare-at prices that were never real, permanent "70% off" banners, or countdown timers that reset on every page load.
- Claims the store cannot back up: "official store," "made in USA," "clinically proven," "FDA approved," fake trust badges or reviews imported from another seller.
- Prices or stock in the feed that do not match the product page or checkout.
- Unfinished pages, lorem ipsum text, broken links or demo products left over from the theme.
- Many unrelated product categories with copied supplier descriptions, which reads as a low-trust store.
- Poor reviews or complaints about the business on third-party sites.
The store-side checklist
Fix everything below before you touch the review button. Google reviews the whole website, not just the item or page that caught its attention.
Contact information
Google's minimum is at least one of: business address, phone number, email, contact form or social media business profile, visible before checkout. For a suspended account, go well past the minimum. Put your legal business name, a physical address, a working phone number and a business email (on your own domain, not a free webmail address) on a Contact page, and repeat the key details in the footer. The same business details should appear in Merchant Center under Settings > Business info.
Policies
You need a refund and return policy, a shipping policy, a privacy policy and terms of service, each linked from the footer. They must describe how your store actually works: the return window, who pays return shipping, restocking fees, refund timing, processing time and delivery estimates per region. If you start from a generator such as our refund policy generator or privacy policy generator, edit every line so it matches your business. The return policy you enter in Merchant Center must match the one on the site.
Business identity
Add an About page that says who runs the store, where it is based and what it sells. Use the same business name everywhere: logo, footer, policies, checkout, order emails, Merchant Center and the payment processor descriptor. If Google prompts you for identity or business verification in Merchant Center, complete it. Google may keep the review button disabled until you do.
Pricing accuracy
The price in your feed, on the product page and at checkout must match, in the same currency. Sale prices need a real original price behind them. Remove fake compare-at prices and any timer that resets. Surprise fees added at checkout are a textbook omission problem.
Checkout and payment
Checkout must run on HTTPS, show the total cost including shipping and tax before payment, and offer standard payment methods. Test a full checkout path yourself on mobile and desktop.
Claims and content
Remove any claim you cannot prove, any third-party logo or trust badge you are not entitled to use, and any review you did not collect yourself. Delete demo products, placeholder text and empty collections. Take down products you cannot ship.
| Area | What Google needs to see | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Contact | Name, address, phone, email visible before checkout | Contact form only |
| Policies | Returns, refunds, shipping, privacy, terms that fit your business | Unedited template text |
| Identity | One consistent business name, an About page | Different names in footer, checkout and Merchant Center |
| Pricing | Same price in feed, page and checkout | Fake compare-at prices, hidden fees |
| Checkout | HTTPS, total cost shown, normal payment options | Fees added at the last step |
| Claims | Only claims you can prove | Fake badges, imported reviews, "official" wording |
Check the Merchant Center side too
A clean website can still fail review if the account data contradicts it. Before you request a review:
- Confirm the business name, address and phone under Settings > Business info match the website.
- Make sure the online store URL is verified and claimed under Settings > Business info > Your online store.
- Open Shipping and returns and compare every shipping cost, delivery time and return rule with your policy pages.
- Check the product data for items that are out of stock, discontinued or priced differently from the site. Update them at the source, then let the data sync.
- Make sure your product data source is not empty. Google will not review an account with no products.
If your feed has broader quality problems, our feed optimization checklist covers titles, descriptions, identifiers and price accuracy.
How to request a review
Once the fixes are live and have been for a day or two, request the review:
- In Merchant Center, go to Products, open the Needs attention tab and select View setup and policy issues (the menu sits under Products & store in the current navigation).
- Find the misrepresentation issue and read any details Google gives.
- Complete identity or business verification if Google asks for it. The review button can stay disabled until you do.
- Select I fixed the issue if you made changes, or I disagree with the issue if you believe the flag is wrong.
- Select Request review. Where a free-text field is offered, list the specific changes you made in plain sentences.
- Wait for the email. Google says account reviews typically take up to seven working days and can take longer for complex cases.
What to write when a text field is offered
Keep it short and factual. Reviewers want to see that you understood the policy and changed the store, not a story about your business. A good note lists each change with the page it is on, for example:
Added our legal business name, street address, phone number and support email to the Contact page and site footer. Rewrote the refund policy to state a 30-day return window, who pays return shipping and refund timing. Removed compare-at prices that did not reflect previous selling prices. Updated delivery estimates on the shipping policy and in Merchant Center to 7 to 12 business days.
Only list changes you actually made, and only use numbers that match your real policies. Do not argue, threaten or promise ad spend. None of that affects the outcome.
Shopify merchants can also request a re-review from the Google & YouTube app, which sends the same request. Our Shopify Merchant Center setup guide shows where the channel reports account issues.
Warning: Do not request a review the same day you notice the suspension. Every unsuccessful review can lengthen the wait before the next one. Fix everything, check it twice, then submit.
Cooldown periods and how many attempts you get
Google limits how often you can ask. During a warning period (usually 7 or 28 days before a warning turns into a suspension), Google allows one courtesy review. After a suspension, once you have used the disagree option and tried the fix route without success, a cooldown period starts. During cooldown:
- The review button is disabled (greyed out) and the account stays suspended.
- Google says its support team cannot bypass or shorten the cooldown.
- Each further unsuccessful review can lead to a longer cooldown.
Google does not publish exact cooldown lengths. Practitioners commonly report the first one at about seven days, with later ones growing longer. Treat every attempt as limited and use the cooldown to find what you missed rather than waiting it out.
What not to do
- Do not open a new Merchant Center account. Google's policy says deleting and recreating accounts does not resolve a suspension. A new account for the same business is treated as circumventing Google's systems and is usually suspended as well, sometimes along with linked accounts.
- Do not submit a review before fixing the site. Each failed review costs time.
- Do not add a fake address or a virtual office you do not use. Inconsistent identity details are part of the problem you are trying to solve.
- Do not invent GTINs or other identifiers to clear product warnings. Fabricated data can escalate a product issue into an account issue.
- Do not only edit the feed. Misrepresentation is about the website and business. Changing titles alone rarely helps.
- Do not trust anyone who guarantees reinstatement. Nobody outside Google can guarantee a review outcome.
If the review fails
A rejection means Google still sees a gap. Go back through the checklist with fresh eyes, or ask someone who has never seen the store to try to answer: who runs this business, where is it, how do I contact them, what will I pay in total and how do I return something? Anything they cannot answer in a minute is a likely cause.
Look outside your own site as well. Search your business name plus "reviews" or "scam." Unresolved complaints and poor third-party ratings can count against you, so reply to them and resolve what you can.
A scan can speed up the first pass. The AM Jarvis GMC Scanner and Fixer checks a connected Shopify or WooCommerce store for missing policy pages, missing contact information and product data problems like missing brand or GTIN and thin descriptions, then pushes fixes to the store in batches. It does not submit reviews or talk to Google for you. The review request, identity verification and any business decisions remain yours.
For background on how Merchant Center reviews accounts in the first place, see what Google Merchant Center is and how it works.