Merchant Center misrepresentation: how to fix the suspension
Misrepresentation is an account-level suspension in Merchant Center that stops your entire inventory. Google has judged that the store does not present itself transparently enough. The cause is usually not a single product but missing contact, return and pricing information on the site.
Misrepresentation is the most frustrating warning you can get in Merchant Center. It is not an item-level disapproval but an account-level suspension, and all of your products stop serving.
The wording of the warning is vague and does not say which rule was broken. That is deliberate, but it makes fixing it harder. The order below starts where the cause is most likely to be found.
What Google is actually looking for
The heart of the policy is this: a buyer should be able to work out from the site who they are buying from, how much they will pay, and what happens if something goes wrong.
The large majority of suspensions come from a gap in one of those three headings. Most of the time it has nothing to do with product data.
1. Contact and identity information
The site must carry a reachable way to make contact, ideally more than one
A physical address and the trading name should be published
An About page should describe the store and the business behind it
Contact details should not sit only behind a form
2. Return, cancellation and shipping policy
Having the policy is not enough, it has to be findable and understandable. A single link in the footer does not help if the page content is thin.
The return window has to be stated clearly in days
It has to say who pays the return shipping cost
How long a refund takes has to be written down
Delivery time and cost have to be visible before payment
3. Price and promotion transparency
Every gap between the price shown on the site and the amount that appears at checkout creates risk. Mandatory fees that appear at the payment step are a direct breach of this policy.
The total including tax and shipping should be clear before payment
A struck-through comparison price has to be a real former price
Urgency counters and stock warnings have to reflect reality
Artificial urgency is the most commonly overlooked cause. A countdown that resets every time the page is refreshed falls under the policy's definition of a misleading practice.
4. Domain and account history
Recently registered domains, domains with private WHOIS information, and structures linked to a previously suspended account attract additional review.
There is little you can do under this heading. You cannot change how old the domain is, but you can offset it by making the other headings flawless.
How to use the review request
Your right to a review is limited and every failed request lengthens the wait. Submitting the request before the fix is complete is the most expensive mistake.
Go through all four headings above, not just one
Verify in a browser that the changes are live on the site
Check that the pages are reachable by Googlebot
Wait one to two days so the changes are indexed
Submit the review request and make no further changes
A result usually arrives within three to seven business days
What happens to your ads while suspended
When Merchant Center is suspended, Shopping campaigns and the product-carrying part of Performance Max stop. Search and Display campaigns are not affected.
In practice that means a significant part of e-commerce revenue is cut off at once. Which is why completing the four headings above while there is no problem yet is the cheapest route, rather than waiting for a suspension. For item-level disapprovals, see the product disapproval article.