- Ah, this is the most frustrating error
in Google Merchant Center.
Misrepresentation of self or products.
What is this?
Relax, relax, guys.
I'm going to show you exactly what caused it
and how to fix it in this video.
Let's go.
(upbeat music)
Okay guys, if you're getting this error
in your Merchant Center account,
your account has been suspended.
It's really frustrating,
because Google doesn't give you any information
about what caused it and you're kind of at a loss.
I've been getting so many emails from a lot
of you guys out there that are having this error.
And you're finding my other video
where I give a much more general approach
to fixing your suspension.
And Google has been banning so many accounts
the last few months.
I think they've gotten much more liberal
with their banning and a lot of people are experiencing it.
It looks like they're cracking down on stores
that aren't following the exact rules.
So, what can cause this error?
I've got a big list here that we're going to go through.
Basically, you're getting this error
because Google thinks you're trying to scam people
in some way.
This is just because you haven't followed their exact rules
step-by-step.
The frustrating thing is
that there are so many rules to follow.
You'll also get this suspension
if you leave products disapproved
in your Google Merchant Center account
for too long without fixing them.
I recommend checking your Google Merchant Center account
every single day to make sure there are no disapprovals.
Don't leave them for days, guys
as soon as you see an error,
fix it as soon as possible,
because it is much harder to get your account back
once it's suspended.
Now, my team and I, we actually provide a service
where we check your account every single day for errors,
and we fix them as soon as they happen.
If you'd rather that we take care of this for you,
and stop the potential for this suspension happening again
I'll leave a link in the description to my website,
a lot of people are emailing me,
asking me to do this for them.
So I thought, okay, let me do this for you guys.
I'll make a service.
Okay.
Let's get into the things that you need to fix.
Okay, first things first,
you need to make sure that you have the basic legal stuff
set up on your website.
Make sure that your website clearly has,
physical address
telephone number,
contact email address,
contact form like on a contact page,
contact hours and the response time.
I recommend putting these details
on the contact page of your website.
Also add in the physical address,
the contact phone number
and the contact email address
into the footer of your website.
Now also go over to Google Merchant Center
and make sure that in your business information settings
that these match what's actually on your website as well.
I've got a video that shows you how to set up
your business information settings.
I'll leave that in the description too.
You also need to make sure that you set up
all the legal pages on your website.
What does this mean?
There are four big ones.
Shipping page.
Make sure you have a page on your website
that goes through your shipping policy.
Make sure that it's very, very clear.
It's not ambiguous.
And it explains exactly how the shipping process works.
Even say where your warehouse is located.
I would also include link to this page in the footer
as well as on your product pages.
The next page is the return and refunds page.
Guys.
This is very important and a huge reason
why people get their accounts suspended.
Make sure that you have a refunds and returns page
that clearly says that you do provide refunds and returns,
and how they can actually do this.
Nothing says I am a scammy e-commerce website more
than not having this page
or making it very ambiguous.
Make it super clear.
The steps to getting a refund
and how to return the products if they have a problem.
I recommend having an email address
under your domain called returns@yourstore.com.
Make sure that you link this page in the footer
and even on your product page,
don't hide it on your website.
The next page is the terms and conditions page.
If you don't have one, get one set up.
Now I'm not a lawyer.
I can't write this page for you.
There are templates online that you can use.
I've also made a video on setting up these pages
and I use the Shopify template.
I'll leave a link in the description
make sure you have this set up.
It's got to be appropriate
for your store, where it's located,
where your customers are located too.
Make sure you set this up,
put a link in the footer of your website.
The next page is the privacy policy page.
Similar to the terms and conditions page.
You need this on your website.
There are templates online you can use,
but I can't give legal advice.
You've got to set this up for yourself,
for your store, where it's located,
where your customers are located.
I do go through the template
in my other video link is in the description.
I'll put that in there for how to set up your legal pages
on your website.
Similar to the terms and conditions page,
put a link to that in the footer of your website.
Now I'm sure I'm going to get this question on this video.
So, what if you don't have a physical address
and what have you don't have a telephone number?
Well, there are a few options.
You can use your home address.
You can also get a virtual address,
where you pay for an address in a building somewhere,
like an office.
You can also set up a VoIP number for the phone number,
a virtual phone number,
that automatically redirects to your own phone number.
The thing is I also work with about a dozen stores
that don't have a physical address.
They don't have a phone number.
They don't have a physical address,
'cause they're either drop shipping using 3PL
and they're running their whole e-commerce empire remotely.
They do everything via email or support chat
and they don't have a physical office,
but these guys have websites that are very legit.
It's not a scamming looking general store
with no reviews and terrible product photos.
They have all the other legal pages set up
and they play by Google's rules.
And I know you're going to ask me,
"Can I get away with not having the physical address,
or the phone number?"
Well, you're probably looking at this video
because you've been suspended.
I recommend you follow every single rule
and just try and play by all of what Google wants,
if you want to get unsuspended again.
So yes, you can do it without a physical address
and without a phone number, but it is a bit more risky.
If I were you, I would do everything I could
to get unsuspended
and doing that is getting a physical address
and getting a phone number.
So yeah guys, do what you want here.
This is just my advice,
because you're here to learn how to get unsuspended.
I recommend just going fully a hundred percent
in the right direction
if you want to give it your best shot.
I can't guarantee that you'll get unsuspended,
because it's up to Google,
but I'm trying to give you the best advice I can
with what I've seen has worked
for other stores that I've worked with.
Okay guys, now that you've gone through
and fixed up all those legal pages
and all the other stuff on your website,
there are a bunch of other reasons
why Google can suspend you for misrepresentation,
and I'm going to go through them right now.
One, pricing of your products.
Okay guys, super important.
Make sure that you go into your Google Merchant Center
account and make sure that the tax settings
and the shipping settings are set up perfectly
in your Google Merchant Center account.
If these are false and you haven't set them up properly
then Google can suspend you
because they think you're scamming people,
because you're not giving people the correct price.
I do have a video on setting up your shipping settings
in your Merchant Center Account.
I'll leave a link to that in the description.
Basically, you need to make sure that your shipping
policy matches your actual shipping policy,
and what people will pay for shipping.
For the tax settings,
if you're selling to U.S. customers
then there's a setting in there
that you can tell Google to calculate this automatically
for you, but you'll really need to do the tax settings
for your own store for yourself.
For both of these settings, the shipping and tax,
I can't tell you exactly what to put,
because it depends on the store.
It depends on what you're actually charging for shipping.
It depends on where you're located, all that sort of stuff.
You need to do this for your own store.
I'll leave you to it, but go through,
and just make sure that this matches exactly
what the person is going to be paying,
for both of these settings.
The next reason is not clearly stating
what payment methods the user can use
if they're going to buy from your store.
Very simple, but just list out on your website
the payment methods they can use.
You can do this in the footer of your website.
It's really easy.
You can also put it on your terms and conditions page too.
The next reason is promoting out-of-stock items.
This is super common, especially if you've set
up your feed with the Google Sheets method,
because you've created your feed,
you've just left it there in Google Sheets.
And then you've gone out of stock on your website,
but you haven't changed the feed.
So, Google is seeing that your website's out of stock,
but the feed is saying it's in stock.
So they go, "Hmm, this isn't a good buying experience
"for our traffic."
"So let's ban that account."
They'll create an error in your Merchant Center account.
If you don't fix it, you'll get suspended.
So, guys make sure that you update your feed
if you're using a static feed like Google Sheets,
or use a dynamic feed
like using some feed software that pulls in that data
automatically into your Merchant Center account,
to make sure the feed is updated
as soon as a product goes out of stock.
Google is very strict on this.
And a lot of people are very surprised when
they get suspended for this reason.
It's so easy to prevent.
So, make sure you're on top of this.
The next reason for this suspension is running deals
and promotions that are not actually available.
Okay guys.
So, if you're running any sales on your website
make sure that everyone can use it.
Don't just have a sale for one subset of users.
Also don't let any promotions show on your website
if people can actually use that coupon code.
This looks scammy to Google
because you're promising these great deals
and then the customer can't actually buy the product
for that price.
Okay guys, the next thing here,
and this is a big cause for suspensions,
is misleading information.
Okay, so we should have fixed our business information
settings previously in that Google Merchant Center account,
but really pay attention to this
because this extends more than just your own details.
This is about making false statements
about your identity, your qualifications,
and even about your products.
Don't tell people that you're a certified reseller
if you're actually not.
Don't use a specific brand name to try and drive traffic
to a different part of your website
when you're not actually selling that brand.
Don't promise that your products can do things
that are highly unlikely.
Even if this result is possible.
This means not using words like miracle cure,
or anything like that.
Go easy on the crazy selling.
And don't over promise.
I see this suspension happening a lot
to health-related companies, especially
with the COVID pandemic right now,
a lot of companies are trying to put stuff
in their copy that promises all these health benefits
that aren't necessarily proven.
This is a big red flag to Google,
'cause they're really careful about
people selling supplements
that promise all this stuff,
but don't actually deliver
because that's a bad experience for their customers.
Another big thing here is using a lot of trust symbols
and stamps if you're not affiliated
with that organization yourself.
For example, if you have a gardening e-commerce store
don't put a big sticker on your website
from the American Gardeners Association
if you're not affiliated with them at all.
I see a lot of stores trying to put these big images
and stamps all over their website
when it's clearly obvious that they didn't get approval,
they're not affiliated with these associations themselves.
And it looks so scammy.
It's really easy to see.
The last big category for this error
is basically not being a scumbag.
Don't lie.
Don't make stuff up about your business,
or about your products.
Be honest, don't hide vital information about your store
and your products.
Don't make a fake name.
Don't make a fake business name,
and don't add fake contact information either.
Don't make your website look like another store,
another website, another brand,
don't just copy their design.
Google will see this and they will think
that you're deceiving customers.
Also don't sell products if you can't actually get them
to the customer.
I know that testing the market is important,
but Google doesn't like it if you're selling products
on Google Shopping and you can't actually ship them
to the customer yourself.
If you're doing this, then this is up to you,
it's your responsibility to what you do here.
Just make sure that you don't get caught.
Okay guys, so those are the big reasons
why Google can ban you,
suspend you for misrepresentation of self and products.
Okay, guys, let me now go through
what you can do to get approved again,
once you've fixed up all these issues.
Before I do that, I really want to emphasize
fix the errors in your Google Merchant Center accounts.
It's so important, do this on a regular basis
so this never happens ever again.
Sometimes you get an error for misrepresentation
in your account, and you'll have a bit
of a warning period to fix it
before your account is actually suspended.
If you get this warning, you're not suspended yet,
but fix it as soon as it happens.
Because if you wait, even a couple of days
Google can then actually ban and suspend you.
And it's much harder to get it fixed after that happens.
So, check your account every single day,
fix errors as soon as they come up.
If you can't be bothered to do this yourself
then send me a message.
I'll put a link in the description below.
Check out what we do.
We can do this for you, take care of it for you.
You can get the peace of mind so
that your whole shopping campaign doesn't go down
and it takes weeks or months to get it fixed.
All right, guys.
So, how can you fix this suspension.
One, go through this video
and fix every single potential error.
Sometimes it can be hard to know what the exact problem is,
and Google doesn't always tell you exactly what it is.
So go through and just be a hundred percent sure
that you've fixed it.
Something that a lot of people forget is making sure
their Merchant Center account settings
are all fixed as well.
Make sure that your business information,
your shipping settings and your tax settings
are all set up and they match exactly
what's on your website
and what actually happens on your store.
Two, you'll need to request a review
of your Merchant Center account.
To do this go into your Google Merchant Center account
go to the products navigation menu
and click on diagnostics, click the account issues tab.
Then you should be able to find a button to
request the review there.
If you don't see the button,
then makes sure that you fix all the errors that you can.
Like this one here, in this screenshot
for this website not being properly claimed.
Reviews can take up to three business days
and sometimes even a week or more.
And contacting Google is a very painful process.
Usually you can get onto their live chat
and speak to them to see the status of that review.
And in the past, I've been able to call Google
and find out the status
and try and push it along in their process.
But since the pandemic it's been really hard
to get in touch with their phone support
and they're getting a lot of calls,
So, they've kind of,
I think they've actually turned it off for now.
I still recommend trying their phone number.
I'll leave a link in the description
to a list of all the contact numbers for Google.
It might be better by the time you're watching this.
If you don't see that review button
and you've fixed all the errors,
then I recommend getting on live chat
and manually requesting that review
and finding out the status.
If you still can't get your account approved
and I've seen this happen with a few stores,
where they've even been denied
after fixing all those errors.
One last thing that you can do
is to create a fresh Gmail account
and a fresh Google Merchant Center account for your store.
Now, I can't guarantee that this will work
but I do know a couple of store owners
that have succeeded by doing this.
I also know another store owner
that went to much more extreme lengths
to get his Google Shopping ads going again.
What he did was he created a new domain name
and a new store.
He put all his products on this new domain
and it was quite similar to his old one.
And he redirected all the old traffic,
his old domain, to this new domain.
And he was then able to create a fresh Google
Merchant Center account,
a fresh Google ads account
and then get his Shopping ads running again.
It was a lot of work, a lot of effort,
but he relied so much on Shopping,
'cause it was so incredible for his niche and his store.
Whatever you do I recommend that you just follow
all the rules, play by Google's rules, guys.
You don't want to play around with Google
and have the approach of,
"I'm going to see the minimum I can do,
"or what I can do to get past all these rules."
Take it seriously, guys.
I do know a few stores that couldn't get that ban lifted.
And like I said the only way to do that,
for this one guy that did do this,
was create that whole new URL.
You don't want to get to that point, guys.
He's never going to make those mistakes again.
He's on top of his Google Merchant Center account
because he understands,
"Man, I'm not going through that whole thing again."
All right guys, that's it for this video.
I really hope this was helpful to you.
And it helps with your process
for getting your account unsuspended.
I know a lot of people are struggling with this error,
and I'm getting so many emails just about this one problem.
If it was helpful, please give it a thumbs up
and let me know in the comments below.
Also, if you've found a solution
and you found one of these things,
let us know down below exactly what helped fix the error.
Google is changing all the time
and it's going to help everyone else
that finds this video to get their account approved as well.
I really want to see you guys succeed with these campaigns,
'cause I know once you get those Google Shopping campaigns
running well, man they have so much potential
to bring so much good for your e-commerce store.
So, I've made a bunch of other videos too,
about growing your e-commerce store,
helping with these Shopping campaigns too.
I recommend checking it out,
and consider subscribing too if you want to learn more
about growing your e-commerce store.
Anyway guys, that's it for today's video.
I hope this was helpful.
Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you in the next one.
Bye for now.
(upbeat music)