What Google reviewers check on a misrepresentation appeal
By Terry Ecom · Last reviewed 2026-08-20 · Source: Google Merchant Center Help
You do not need an insider leak. Merchant Center Help already told reviewers — and you — what to verify for misrepresentation and website-needs-improvement.
The published list
Conduct a website audit and verify: consistent legal name, address, phone and email across site and account; explicit links to shipping, refund and privacy policies; no placeholder text; no broken links; checkout functional and on HTTPS; identity verification documents that match the account.
Help articles on a fully functional store add About, returns, shipping and business info as pages that must exist and be usable. Landing-page rules add price, availability and a buy path that match the feed.
What we will not claim
We will not publish a ranked “14 things reviewers look at in order”, a minutes-per-review figure, or a first-appeal success rate. Those numbers are not on Google’s Help pages. Inventing them is how thin SEO pages get merchants to appeal too early.
The useful instruction is mechanical: make compliance easy to verify. Put the same identity on the page and in the account. Link the three policies. Make every submitted URL resolve.
FAQ
Is the review human or automated?
Google does not publish a split we can cite. Build the storefront as if a person will open the links — because the audit list is made of pages a person (or a crawler) can open.
Do reviewers open my links?
The published instructions are to verify those pages. Treat every policy and contact URL as something that will be loaded.
What should I attach to an appeal?
Google’s process is request review after the site meets the requirements. We do not coach fabricated evidence. Specific live URLs beat a long apology.
Sources
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