Understand Google’s requirements when registering Merchant Center
With the goal to minimize any signs of violation or fraudulent, and to protect online consumers, Google requires that the merchants must provide full information about their businesses, products, and fully comply with Google Merchant Center (GMC) guidelines and requirements. The information, products, and websites that the merchant submits will be thoroughly reviewed by Google. As a result, in order to pass this evaluation, the merchant must properly set up their store with accurate, legitimate, and consistent information. In this article, we will go over each of Google's requirements to help you prepare for your registration.
A. Business information
B. Product information
C. Website information
D. Promotional content
E. Store policies
You must provide all of the following business information:
Email.
Phone number.
Address. The address must be valid, linked to your business information, and should be accessible via Google Maps.
The information listed above must be consistent across all pages of your website and in your GMC account.
Product description must be complete, transparent, and accurate.
Product photos must be complete and in high quality. Images of the product in different angles should be included.
Product description must include accurate and detailed information of the product, matching the product data submitted to Google.
Product title should be concise and not all capital letters. Do not include the product SKU or model number in the title.
Produce price should be easy to spot and match the data submitted to Google.
Product information should not contain any typo or slang.
The same font should be applied consistently throughout the text.
The following list of products is prohibited and restricted to sell on Google:
Counterfeit products
Dangerous products
Inappropriate content
Unsupported Shopping content
Products that enable dishonest behavior
Copyrighted content
Adult-oriented content
Read more: Shopping ads policies.
Ensure that product and image URLs are both accessible and have a high crawl rate.
Maintain good product quality and quantity to establish a reputable and trustworthy store.
Your store should have more than 50 products.
Products should be organized into different collections. These collections should be featured on the homepage.
Domain:
Your domain must have valid SSL to ensure payment safety and increase customer reliability when making purchases.
Your website must be accessible through both www and non-www domains.
A logo and favicon must be added.
Banners and images must:
Be clear and of good quality to accurately reflect the main product type that the store is selling.
Have accurate information. Buttons and URLs must point to accessible links on the store.
Include no fake logos of payment providers such as TRUSTe, McAfee, etc.
Do not leave any unnecessary spaces or blocks on the store that have not been properly set up.
Requests for email subscriptions should be disabled because they indicate that you are collecting data from customers.
Include an About us page on your store with well-prepared content, introducing the store and its products, as well as the store's commitment to the product.
Include a Contact us page on your store.
Do not use pop up or pop up banner to collect customer information in any form (For example, exit intend popups, promotion popups, win wheels, etc. )
Avoid using apps or plugins that display fake countdowns (stock countdown, timer countdowns, etc.)
Do not display promotions or countdowns on your website.
If any of the above content is displayed, it must provide clear information such as the start and finish dates, the applicable products, along with the terms and conditions. You should not apply discounts to all of your store's products, and you should double-check that all discount/free shipping codes are valid.
Your store must include all necessary policy pages, including: Privacy policy, Terms of Service, Shipping policy, Return and Refund policy, Payment/Billing terms and conditions, etc.
The content of each policy must be clear, precise, and in the same language as in your product feed.
Shipping policy, Return and refund policy:
Must fully detail the shipping/return/refund process, including contact information, return/refund conditions, processing method, time, address, and cost.
Must not include claims of commitments or guarantee such as a 100% refund if not satisfied with the product, or 100% quality satisfaction.
For payment-related policies, the payment method as well as the total cost that customers will have to pay before and after the purchase must be disclosed. Payment method information must be consistent across all pages.
These policy pages should be easily accessible on the store's website, typically in the footer.
You can add your store details to these policy pages to make it more trustworthy.
For ShopBase store, please refer to this article on how to set up your policy pages.
For PlusBase store, go to Settings > Legal. Here, you can add store details to the beginning or the end of each page by selecting Add custom text to [Refund] policy.
You can use the following template variables by copying and pasting them in the desired policy page:
{{shop.name}}: The store name you entered in Settings > General.
{{shop.domain}}: The current primary domain in Online store > Domains.
{{shop.address}}: The store address you entered in Settings > General. This variable will return data in format of <address>, <city>, <state (if any)>, <ZIP/postal code>, <country>.
{{shop.phone}}: The store phone you entered in Settings > General.
{{shop.customer_email}}: Your store's customer email address. With PlusBase, the default customer email address is support@shops-support.net. If you buy a domain from our platform, the customer email address will be an email alias that has a suffix similar to that domain.
{{shop.activated_payment}}: The currently activated payment methods of your store. With PlusBase, the default payment methods are Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express) and PayPal.
Please refer to the following documents from the ShopBase Team for your reference: Guide to set up a ShopBase store and Google Merchant Center account; Guide to set up a PrintBase store and Google Merchant Center account; Guide to set up a PlusBase store and Google Merchant Center account.
Connect Google Merchant Center to online store with ShopBase's checklist
Understand Google Merchant Center account application statuses
Automatically sync product feed to Google Merchant Center
In this article
A. Business information
B. Product information
C. Website information
D. Promotional content
E. Store policies
A. Business information
You must provide all of the following business information:
Email.
Phone number.
Address. The address must be valid, linked to your business information, and should be accessible via Google Maps.
The information listed above must be consistent across all pages of your website and in your GMC account.
B. Product information
Product description must be complete, transparent, and accurate.
Product photos must be complete and in high quality. Images of the product in different angles should be included.
Product description must include accurate and detailed information of the product, matching the product data submitted to Google.
Product title should be concise and not all capital letters. Do not include the product SKU or model number in the title.
Produce price should be easy to spot and match the data submitted to Google.
Product information should not contain any typo or slang.
The same font should be applied consistently throughout the text.
The following list of products is prohibited and restricted to sell on Google:
Counterfeit products
Dangerous products
Inappropriate content
Unsupported Shopping content
Products that enable dishonest behavior
Copyrighted content
Adult-oriented content
Read more: Shopping ads policies.
Ensure that product and image URLs are both accessible and have a high crawl rate.
Maintain good product quality and quantity to establish a reputable and trustworthy store.
Your store should have more than 50 products.
Products should be organized into different collections. These collections should be featured on the homepage.
C. Website information
Domain:
Your domain must have valid SSL to ensure payment safety and increase customer reliability when making purchases.
Your website must be accessible through both www and non-www domains.
A logo and favicon must be added.
Banners and images must:
Be clear and of good quality to accurately reflect the main product type that the store is selling.
Have accurate information. Buttons and URLs must point to accessible links on the store.
Include no fake logos of payment providers such as TRUSTe, McAfee, etc.
Do not leave any unnecessary spaces or blocks on the store that have not been properly set up.
Requests for email subscriptions should be disabled because they indicate that you are collecting data from customers.
Include an About us page on your store with well-prepared content, introducing the store and its products, as well as the store's commitment to the product.
Include a Contact us page on your store.
Do not use pop up or pop up banner to collect customer information in any form (For example, exit intend popups, promotion popups, win wheels, etc. )
D. Promotional content
Avoid using apps or plugins that display fake countdowns (stock countdown, timer countdowns, etc.)
Do not display promotions or countdowns on your website.
If any of the above content is displayed, it must provide clear information such as the start and finish dates, the applicable products, along with the terms and conditions. You should not apply discounts to all of your store's products, and you should double-check that all discount/free shipping codes are valid.
E. Store policies
Your store must include all necessary policy pages, including: Privacy policy, Terms of Service, Shipping policy, Return and Refund policy, Payment/Billing terms and conditions, etc.
The content of each policy must be clear, precise, and in the same language as in your product feed.
Shipping policy, Return and refund policy:
Must fully detail the shipping/return/refund process, including contact information, return/refund conditions, processing method, time, address, and cost.
Must not include claims of commitments or guarantee such as a 100% refund if not satisfied with the product, or 100% quality satisfaction.
For payment-related policies, the payment method as well as the total cost that customers will have to pay before and after the purchase must be disclosed. Payment method information must be consistent across all pages.
These policy pages should be easily accessible on the store's website, typically in the footer.
You can add your store details to these policy pages to make it more trustworthy.
For ShopBase store, please refer to this article on how to set up your policy pages.
For PlusBase store, go to Settings > Legal. Here, you can add store details to the beginning or the end of each page by selecting Add custom text to [Refund] policy.
You can use the following template variables by copying and pasting them in the desired policy page:
{{shop.name}}: The store name you entered in Settings > General.
{{shop.domain}}: The current primary domain in Online store > Domains.
{{shop.address}}: The store address you entered in Settings > General. This variable will return data in format of <address>, <city>, <state (if any)>, <ZIP/postal code>, <country>.
{{shop.phone}}: The store phone you entered in Settings > General.
{{shop.customer_email}}: Your store's customer email address. With PlusBase, the default customer email address is support@shops-support.net. If you buy a domain from our platform, the customer email address will be an email alias that has a suffix similar to that domain.
{{shop.activated_payment}}: The currently activated payment methods of your store. With PlusBase, the default payment methods are Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express) and PayPal.
Please refer to the following documents from the ShopBase Team for your reference: Guide to set up a ShopBase store and Google Merchant Center account; Guide to set up a PrintBase store and Google Merchant Center account; Guide to set up a PlusBase store and Google Merchant Center account.
Related articles
Connect Google Merchant Center to online store with ShopBase's checklist
Understand Google Merchant Center account application statuses
Automatically sync product feed to Google Merchant Center
Updated on: 23/11/2023
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