Most Merchant Center suspensions are preventable with a 20 point site and feed audit run before you connect the account. Prevention matters because suspensions cost weeks of lost revenue and appeals get harder with each attempt; an afternoon with this checklist is the cheapest insurance in ecommerce.
Section 1: Business identity (checks 1 to 5)
- Registered business address visible in the site footer on every page.
- Working phone number in the footer, answered or voicemailed in business hours.
- About page with real company history, real people, ideally photographs.
- Merchant Center business information matching the site footer exactly: name, address, phone.
- Domain history checked against scam databases if the domain was purchased second hand.
Section 2: Site policies (checks 6 to 10)
- Returns policy page stating the window, the process and who pays return shipping.
- Refund policy stating the timeframe money takes to come back.
- Shipping policy stating costs, methods and delivery estimates per region served.
- Terms of service and privacy policy present and linked from the footer.
- All policy pages reachable within one click from any page.
Section 3: Checkout and trust (checks 11 to 15)
- Full test purchase completed from your target country in a clean browser, no errors.
- All costs visible before the final payment step, no surprise fees.
- HTTPS clean on every page, no mixed content warnings.
- No fake urgency: countdown timers, permanent “sale ends tonight”, fabricated stock counters removed.
- At least two contact routes working end to end (form plus email, or phone).
Section 4: Feed accuracy (checks 16 to 20)
- Feed prices matching page prices, with sync frequent enough to survive your promo cadence.
- Stock status syncing at the same frequency as prices.
- Real GTINs on everything that has them; identifier_exists false on genuine exceptions.
- Clean product images, no overlays, watermarks or placeholders.
- Titles and descriptions free of claims language and keyword stuffing (the Blog 8 rewrite table applies to feeds too).
Do you need a specialist?
For this checklist, honestly, no. Any careful founder can run it in an afternoon, and most suspensions we rescue would never have happened if someone had. Specialists earn their fee in three situations: rescue cases where the appeal history is already messy, complex catalogues (thousands of SKUs, multi country feeds, marketplaces), and regulated or claims heavy categories where the compliance line needs experienced eyes. Prevention is a checklist; rescue is a craft.
After launch: keep it clean
The checklist is not one and done. Prices drift from feeds, apps update and break checkout events, reviews accumulate claims language. Diarise a monthly fifteen minute pass over checks 11, 16, 17 and 20, and a quarterly full run. Accounts that stay clean for their first six months rarely see trouble after; the early period is when trust scores are most fragile.
FAQs
How do I make my ecommerce site compliant for Google Shopping? Run the 20 checks above across business identity, policies, checkout and feed accuracy before connecting Merchant Center, then keep a monthly hygiene pass.
Do I need a specialist to prevent Merchant Center issues? For prevention, no, the checklist covers it. Specialists are worth it for rescues, complex catalogues, and claims heavy categories.
