Merchant Center suspended for misrepresentation: what to do now

Review requests are scarce, a day spent checking is not

With a suspension for misrepresentation, I would make the review request the last step, not the first. Attempts are limited, and each failed one costs days without Shopping revenue. So check beforehand whether your shop shows the same verifiable company everywhere, and whether a buyer understands the terms before paying.

A review takes up to seven business days, according to Google, and after the second unsuccessful attempt a one-week cool down period can follow. A worked example with invented figures: suppose a shop earns €5,000 of contribution margin after ad spend per week through Shopping.

The difference of €19,000 is the amount you weigh against a day of careful work. For a Swiss shop the same applies in CHF. The calculation overstates the loss if part of the demand reaches you anyway via search or direct visits. That does not change the order of steps.

Misrepresentation ranges from deception to an outdated address

Google does not only mean fraud. The policy lists a false identity, a false business name or false contact details, as well as a virtual address shown as headquarters when the business operates entirely from an undisclosed region. Undisclosed total costs come on top. Google classes such cases as egregious, and the account is suspended without warning.

Then there is the mundane version. According to Google, these points can also lead to suspension or disapproval: business details that differ between Merchant Center and the website, missing contact information, incomplete identity verification, unclear shipping or returns texts, placeholders and broken links. For the retailer this means: do not count on the notification showing you the exact spot. You check everything once as a whole, including what is said about you outside your shop, because Google may draw on external sources in its assessment.

A clean legal notice proves little to Google

The legal obligation asks whether the information is there. Google, in my view, asks whether all the information describes the same company and whether that company can be verified. That is why it is not enough to have the legal notice (Impressum) signed off by a lawyer and resubmit.

Google's transparency guidance goes further still: the address should match the business registration, the phone number should be active, and the email should be on the shop's domain. None of this is legal advice, so clarify your obligations with your lawyer. For a Swiss shop, the EU footer requirement does not apply by its wording. I would still show the UID or register number, because it makes the company verifiable. More on the differences between the countries is in Google Ads in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Check the legal entity

Take the register extract or business registration as the single source of truth and work from there through every place the company appears: legal notice, terms and conditions, cancellation policy, footer, contact page, Merchant Center and the documents for merchant verification. Google requires name, address and phone number to be identical in the footer, on the contact page and in the Merchant Center settings. I add the other places because that is exactly where old versions survive.

Read returns, shipping and payment like a buyer

In the second pass, open the shop in a private window and go through a purchase up to just before the final click. Google requires specific delivery timeframes and return procedures, including for returns due to buyer's remorse. I would therefore replace "fast delivery" and "returns by arrangement" with days, costs and the exact process. How to enter the same information in the account is shown in shipping and returns in Merchant Center.

Payment is about the total costs before and after the purchase. The policy names taxes, fees and surcharges, as well as return shipping costs if the return address differs from the business address. If you use an external returns warehouse, disclose it openly together with the costs. The same goes for recurring costs and the billing interval. If an EU shop delivers to Switzerland, I would also state clearly who bears any duties.

Last comes the feed: prices, availability and attributes must match the shop exactly, and according to Google this is explicitly part of the appeal. If discrepancies turn up here, the article on disapprovals for incorrect prices will help. Placeholder texts, dead links and a checkout with errors go in the same step.

How to submit the request

The process in Merchant Center, as of November 2026:

1. Under Products, open the "Needs attention" tab. If there is a merchant verification request there asking for ID or business documents, it must be completed before the request.
2. Check that the corrections are live. Anything that only exists in a test environment is invisible to the review.
3. Look at the setup and policy issues and choose one option per issue: "I fixed the issue" or "I disagree with the issue".
4. Trigger "Request review" and follow the email and the status in Merchant Center.

The choice in step 3 is the real decision. The second option is possibly only available once. I advise using it only if your check found nothing and the evidence is ready. According to Google, accounts are only reinstated when the case is compelling and well justified, so write briefly which company is behind the shop and where that can be verified. If you corrected something, choose the first option, even if you think the correction was minor.

How often you can request a review

Count on two attempts before it gets expensive. According to Google, the cool down period begins once you have tried both disagreeing and fixing. The button is then greyed out, and the end date is shown in the "Needs attention" tab. The period can get longer after each unsuccessful review, and support cannot shorten it. That is why I consider "let's try and see what happens" the most expensive option. A second account is no way out: according to Google, anyone who tries to use Shopping again through new accounts after a suspension violates the abuse of the network policy.

A check does not fix operational faults

The check helps when the presentation is the problem. It does not help when the presentation is accurate and the business behind it does not comply with the policy. A virtual address while operating from another region has to be disclosed, not worded better. The same applies if you refuse returns that your own terms allow, because Google lists that as a violation too. Here you change the operation first and then the text, and you clarify the legal position with someone qualified to advise on it.

The situation is different with a warning instead of a suspension. During a warning period of 7 or 28 days, products remain visible, and you can request one courtesy review at any time. Revenue keeps coming in, but the clock is also ticking. Use the time for the same check. If you want to set up Merchant Center from scratch, start with the guide to Google Shopping and Merchant Center.