Privacy policy and terms of service for Google Merchant Center
By Terry Ecom · Last reviewed 2026-08-31 · Source: Google Merchant Center Help
These are the two policy pages merchants assume are handled because Shopify generated them. Generated, unlinked, or living at a non-standard URL are three different failures.
Where each one is published
The website audit for Misrepresentation and “Website needs improvement” names shipping, refund and privacy as the three policies to link explicitly. Privacy is on that list by name.
Terms of service is not on that three-item list, but the fully-functional-store article treats business and policy pages as part of a complete store, and a store missing terms alongside thin returns and shipping copy reads as unfinished overall. Scout checks both.
Reachable, not merely present
A policy that exists in the Shopify admin but is not linked from the storefront is not much use to someone verifying the site. Link the canonical URLs from the footer on every template, not only from the homepage.
Placement matters too. On Shopify these belong under /policies/. A hand-built duplicate under /pages/ can drift out of date, and the two versions disagreeing is worse than having one.
What GMC Scout flags
Missing privacy policy and missing terms are separate checks. Scout also reports policy page location, because a policy served from an unexpected path is a discoverability finding rather than a missing-page finding.
Scout does not review the legal adequacy of your policy text for any jurisdiction. It checks that the pages exist, resolve, and are reachable from the storefront. Whether your privacy policy satisfies GDPR or CCPA is a question for a lawyer, not a crawler.
FAQ
Is a generated privacy policy acceptable?
A generated policy that accurately describes what your store actually collects is fine. One that still contains bracketed placeholders or contradicts your real apps and tracking is the problem.
Does terms of service count toward the audit?
The three policies Google names are shipping, refund and privacy. Terms is not on that list. It is part of a complete store, it is cheap to publish, and Scout checks it — do not skip it on a technicality.
Does the footer link have to be on every page?
Google’s guidance is that the policies be explicitly linked. Footer-on-every-template is the reliable way to make that true from any product page a reviewer happens to open.
Sources
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