- No, my Google Merchant Center Account got suspended.
Relax, we'll get it approved, in this video, let's go.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so you've received this dreaded email.
Your account is suspended, how do you fix it?
Okay, it is pretty easy.
If you fix the issues in your account,
then the suspension will be lifted
and you could run your ads again.
If not, your Google Merchant Center account
will stay suspended, and you'll need to wait till you fix it
before you can start your ads again.
Okay, so how do you fix this?
You need to go into your Google Merchant Center account,
go into the diagnostics
and go through every single error and fix it one by one
before you can get that suspension lifted.
There will often be one big glaring error in there
that's causing the suspension like,
your whole website is down.
So, obviously you need to fix this one especially,
before you can get everything running again.
Okay, I have a video that talks about
how to get your Google Merchant Center products approved.
It talks about how to get these errors fixed
and I go into a lot of detail
and my strategy which involves also calling Google.
So, I really, really recommend you check that out.
I'll leave a link in the description to that video.
Later in this video, I'm also gonna go through the
specific errors that cause your merchant center account
to be suspended.
So, make sure you stay on to watch those.
Okay, so you've gone to that video,
you've fixed up all the different errors in your
merchant center account, how do you then get it unsuspended?
In your email that told you that it was suspended,
there should be a link in there to contact Google,
so you can let them know to review it.
If that link is not there,
I'll leave a link in my description here on this video,
that has a link to a page on my website,
that has all the numbers for Google, all around the world
where you can easily call someone about your Google Ads
and Google Merchant Center account,
and they can get it approved over the phone.
This is really helpful
because you can also call in another country
and call another Google, say wherever else in the world,
where they're actually open during those hours.
If, it's currently late at night and you're freaking out
and you wanna get your account approved right now,
you can call them.
Just call in a different country where it is open.
Okay, so sometimes they'll actually evaluate it
over the phone and then reinstate your account.
So, that's awesome.
Sometimes, they'll say you need to wait
for three to five days for this re-evaluation period.
But, at least by calling Google,
you got that time started so now, you just have to wait.
If you're account is not reinstated
after contacting Google,
they'll tell you that you need to fix a few more errors.
And that's cool.
Just go and fix those errors
that they have there in your account
or what they told you on the phone.
You can then submit a second request for approval,
and then you go through that process again.
If your account is not reinstated after the second review,
it will enter a cool down period of about a week.
You won't be at a request another review
so you have to cool down and wait a week
before you can request again.
You will be able to see the cool down dates
in your Google Merchant Center account
in your Account issues and Diagnostics page.
Be patient.
It takes time and you don't wanna rustle
the feathers of Google,
great master in the sky and networks.
Watching our every move and the gate-keeper
of our profitable shopping campaigns.
I for one, welcome our new googly overlords.
Okay, so let's now get into the reasons why your
Google Merchant Center account was suspended.
There's 15 reasons.
The first one is, inaccurate shipping costs.
This is due to inaccurate information between your
product feed or your Google Merchant Center account
shipping settings, and your actual product page
or landing page or website.
Just make sure that whatever's in your shipping settings
in merchant center or in your product feed,
actually matches what you're actually doing on your website
and how you're actually shipping to customers.
It's pretty easy to solve.
I have a whole other video about how to
set up shipping settings in Google Merchant Center.
It's in the description, check it our below
if you wanna learn how to do that.
The second reason is, inaccurate prices,
inaccurate condition
and inaccurate availability.
Just like with the shipping settings,
make sure that your product feed actually has
accurate information that's actually on your website.
You can do this by just having a dynamic feed
and if it changes on your website
and you're using something like a Google sheets feed
then just make sure you update it, it's pretty easy.
Okay, the third reason is incomplete contact details.
Make sure that the physical address of your business,
the contact number and your email address
are in the footer of your website or on the contact page.
These should also be set up in your business settings
in Google Merchant Center.
I'll leave a link in the description to a video I did,
where I showed you how to set these up in
Google Merchant Center and how do it well.
So, please check that out.
The next problem is delivery issues.
This just means that you can actually deliver
to the countries where you're displaying your product.
The fifth one is misrepresentation of self or products.
This is when you have untrustworthy promotions.
So, Google's telling you that the experience
offered through your website is fraudulent or scamming
or it's a bit fishy.
Google's always checking to see if you're actually
running a legit business.
If they sell anything fishy,
they're gonna flag your account until you fix it
or show it otherwise.
The sixth problem is a policy violation
where the user can't actually purchase.
People need to be at actually go to the site
and make a purchase.
If you're advertising on Google shopping ads.
If people cannot purchase, i recommend setting up pre-orders
and it'd pretty easy to di this.
Just get an app that allows you to do pre-orders
so that even if products are ut of stock,
people can still pre-order and pay you money
for those products,
until they come into stock again.
Okay, number seven is the
dangerous products policy violation.
Okay, you're probably selling something like drugs, knives,
guns, explosives or anything like that
that's kinda crazy for Google,
I'll just leave a link in the description
to the dangerous products that Google says are
dangerous products ad check that out
if you wanna see if your products are on that list.
Okay, number eight is,
missing info about payment methods available.
So, can people actually them with their card or PayPal?
You gotta make this clear on the actual page.
Number nine is the landing page or destination URL
is broken or down.
This is a really common one and it means
maybe the URL is broken.
Maybe you've made the product unavailable on Shopify.
Shopping ads need to go to a product page.
You can't send them to the home page,
they have to go to a product page.
So, this is really important.
So, just be careful not to submit a page in your feed
for a product that's a forum for page,
it's a landing page that is broken or
isn't finished yet because Google's gonna flag that
and it's gonna be an error.
I'll add a ink in the description as well
that lists the landing page requirements
for Google shopping.
Number 10 is missing or difficult to discover
legal pages or clarifications.
Okay, so you need to make sure all the legal pages
on your website, are there on your website
and not in a sneaky little place
hidden in some corner that they can't access.
Examples of this include, missing terms and conditions page,
missing privacy policy page
and missing shipping and returns policy page.
Very important.
This shipping and returns policy page should have,
time frame of the refund option,
who will shoulder the shipping cost
when returning the product,
policy for broken or defective product,
policy for products that are not broken
but the customer just wants to return it
'cause they changed their mind.
What are you gonna do in this situation?
And make sure that you use the language
for the country of sale.
Which brings me to the next problem.
Which is, wrong language or currency.
This can happen when you're submitting
for multiple countries and the pages are in a language
that's not supported in that country.
So, make sure that you use the language and currency
that's accepted in that country of sale.
I'll put a link in the description as well to,
a list of all the different countries
and their currency and language that you should have
in Google shopping.
Okay, number 12 is affiliate spam or abuse of network.
Okay, Google does not allow landing pages
that direct users to other irrelevant pages.
You need to make sure that the 'buy now' button
is actually functioning for buying now.
You can't have landing pages
that then direct to the home page,
it has to stay on that product page.
And you can't have stores that just allow
business to business purchases.
Customers should be able to buy those products.
Okay, number 13 is unsecured check-out.
You must have a complete check-out process.
Make sure that your check-out also has an SSL certificate
and make sure that customers have a back button
that they can click to go to the previous page.
This shouldn't be a problem in Shopify,
it's all taken care of.
Okay, 14 is inappropriate images.
Okay, this can be triggered in weird situations
and many times I got past this
and it hasn't triggered it so,
it's something that you have to have to play around with
and keep submitting your products
and those product images for those products
to see what you can get approved.
Google's gonna flag you if you put promotional text
or logos in your image.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Sometimes it's beneficial,
then try and get them approved.
You really have to test this out
but just understanding the risk.
I don't think you'll get your account suspended for this,
but you could, maybe.
But, often they'll just bounce it back
and you just have to change the image and try again.
Other common reasons for getting your account suspended
on Google Merchant Center are,
asking for unnecessary personal details.
The store is password protected so,
people need to actually be ale to access the store.
And the store is not globally accessible.
Okay, so there are the reasons for getting suspended.
How can you avoid getting suspended in the future?
Here are my tips.
Make sure you check your Google Merchant Center account
very regularly.
I'll have to check it once a day.
Often, a couple of times a week.
Just keep a close eye on it
just in case an error pops up.
You don't wanna have an error or a practice approval
or your whole merchant center account going down
and suddenly you lose sales for even just a couple of hours
especially with a high volume account.
Make sure that your product feed is up to date, okay.
I would recommend using a dynamic feed
so it doesn't go out of date
and the things in your website don't change
but then don't change in the feed.
So, make sure you keep that product data feed
up to date with what's actually real and on your website.
A really easy way to not get suspended
is to not sell prohibited items.
And finally, make sure you take the warning seriously.
You can just leave the warnings in there and
you'll be there and your record is approved
but I recommend fixing those up
and making sure you have none in your account, at all times.
Okay, that's everything for today.
If you found this video helpful
and it helped you direct you to my video
that showed you how to get those products approved
in your Google Merchant Center,
then please give this video a thumbs up.
I make a lot of content for you guys
and that tells YouTube, hey, Sam is making good content
that's helping out the people watching this video.
If you have any questions at all about your account
being suspended, please just leave a comment down below.
I answer every single comment, as much as I can
and every single day.
So, I'll be there to answer your question
as soon as I can.
If you wanna see more videos just like this one,
please consider subscribing and check out my channel
for all my other videos on
how to grow your e-commerce store.
Apart from that, thanks so much for watching
and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye for now.
(upbeat music)