---
title: "Merchant Center policy rewrite: which violations now get a warning"
url: https://seomadman.com/news/merchant-center-policy-rewrite-warnings
section: news
language: en
published: 2026-09-28T00:00:00.000Z
modified: 2026-09-28T00:00:00.000Z
author: Adam Hafez
topics: ["Ecommerce SEO"]
---

# Merchant Center policy rewrite: which violations now get a warning

## The short answer

Google rewrote seven Merchant Center policy pages in September 2026. Compared line by line with archived copies, the pages now say which violations get at least 7 days' warning before a suspension and which still suspend at once. Part of Misrepresentation moved to warning-first, and new examples cover hidden shipping origins, fake reviews and VPNs.

## Key takeaways

- Dangerous products, Products that enable dishonest behavior and Sexual content now state that a warning comes at least 7 days before any account suspension.
- The archived Misrepresentation page called the whole policy egregious; the new page limits that to three of its six sections.
- Unavailable offers, Manipulated media and Unreliable claims now carry the 7-day warning instead of the egregious label.
- New examples target hidden business locations, false shipping origins, fake reviews, credit privacy numbers and VPNs sold to bypass geo-restrictions.
- The word "feed" is gone from all seven pages, replaced by "data source", and "Shopping ads" now reads "Shopping ads and listings".

Google rewrote seven Merchant Center policy pages in the last week of September 2026.
[Search Engine Roundtable](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-policy-docs-updates-42167.html)
reported the update and summarised it with an AI model. We compared each page line by line with
its last archived English copy instead, and the change that matters most is one that summary
did not spell out: Google now says, policy by policy, whether a violation gets a warning first.

## Warnings, policy by policy

The archived pages all said the same generic thing: for most violations Google sends a warning
email with 7 or 28 days to fix the issue, but it may not warn for egregious violations. That
sentence is still there. What is new is a line under each policy or section:

> Violations of this policy will not lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning.
> A warning will be issued at least 7 days prior to any suspension of your account.

It now appears on [Dangerous products](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150004?hl=en),
[Products that enable dishonest behavior](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150005?hl=en),
[Sexual content](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150138?hl=en) and three sections of
Misrepresentation. None of the archived copies of those pages carried it.

## Misrepresentation, split

The archived [Misrepresentation](https://web.archive.org/web/20260904005753/https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150127?hl=en)
page, captured on 4 September 2026, opened by calling violations of the whole policy egregious:
serious enough to suspend an account without warning. The current page splits it, with the 7-day warning on half of its sections:

| Section | Current label |
| --- | --- |
| Unacceptable practices | Egregious |
| Coordinated deception | Egregious |
| Dishonest pricing | Egregious |
| Unavailable offers | 7-day warning |
| Manipulated media | 7-day warning |
| Unreliable claims | 7-day warning |

For a store whose offers go out of stock or whose product claims get flagged, that is a real
change: a warning comes first, where the archived page implied none at all. Counterfeit products
stays egregious, as it was.

## New examples

The rewrite also adds examples that were not on the archived pages:

- **Hidden locations.** Misrepresentation now names hiding your business location, headquarters
  or source of fulfilment, showing a false or virtual address, and hiding where products ship
  from to look like local delivery.
- **Faked activity and identity numbers.** The dishonest behavior page adds falsified clicks,
  reviews or social media endorsements, and credit privacy numbers that mimic national ID numbers.
- **VPNs and game cheats.** The same page adds VPNs marketed to get around geo-restrictions, and
  game enhancements and cheat software under hacking devices.
- **Guns.** Dangerous products adds bump stocks to gun parts and paintball as a service to guns.
- **Branding.** Counterfeit products gains best practices: state official reseller partnerships,
  use your own branding, and do not misspell another brand's name, an example that moved there
  from Misrepresentation.

## Wording-only changes

Most of the edits are vocabulary, and they are consistent across all seven pages. "Feed" appears
48 times in the archived copies and not once now; "data source" rises from 24 to 72 mentions.
"Shopping ads" becomes "Shopping ads and listings", and "listing" rises from 26 to 123 mentions,
while the promotion wording drops from 56 to 15. Two pages were renamed: Adult-oriented content is
now Sexual content, and Shopping ads policies is now Google's Shopping ads and listings policies.

The appeal instructions did not change in substance: appeal mentions go from 309 to 307 across the
seven pages. Merchant Center Next is not mentioned in either version.

## How we checked

We saved the current English page for each of the seven policies on 28 September 2026 and compared
it with the latest English copy the Internet Archive held from before the update. For the policy
overview, Misrepresentation and Editorial and professional requirements, those copies are from 10
September, 4 September and 30 August 2026. For Counterfeit products, Dangerous products, Products
that enable dishonest behavior and Sexual content, the latest copies are from April to June 2026, so a change
listed for those four could have been made at any point since then.

If you sell through Merchant Center, the
[structured data for product snippets](/tools/product-snippet-schema-checker) is worth checking
alongside these rules, since unavailable offers and unreliable claims now come with a warning
window you can use to fix them.

## Frequently asked questions

### Will Google warn me before suspending my Merchant Center account?

For Dangerous products, Products that enable dishonest behavior, Sexual content and three Misrepresentation sections, the pages now say a warning comes at least 7 days before any suspension. Counterfeit products and three other Misrepresentation sections are still egregious, which can mean suspension without warning.

### Which Misrepresentation violations are still egregious?

Unacceptable business practices, Coordinated deceptive practices, and Dishonest pricing and transaction conditions. The archived 4 September page applied the egregious label to the whole policy.

### Did Google change what counterfeit or dangerous products are?

Not the core definitions. The Dangerous products page adds bump stocks to its gun part examples and paintball as a service to its gun examples. The Counterfeit page adds best practices on partnerships and branding.

### Do I need to rename my product feed?

No. The pages now say data source where they said feed, matching Merchant Center's current wording. The instructions to remove violating offers before an appeal are otherwise the same.

## Sources

1. [Misrepresentation](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150127?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
2. [Misrepresentation (archived 4 September 2026)](https://web.archive.org/web/20260904005753/https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150127?hl=en) - Internet Archive (primary)
3. [Google's Shopping ads and listings policies](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6149970?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
4. [Shopping ads policies (archived 10 September 2026)](https://web.archive.org/web/20260910060850/https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6149970) - Internet Archive (primary)
5. [Products that enable dishonest behavior](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150005?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
6. [Dangerous products](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150004?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
7. [Sexual content](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150138?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
8. [Counterfeit products](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6149993?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
9. [Editorial and professional requirements](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150244?hl=en) - Google Merchant Center Help (primary)
10. [Editorial & professional requirements (archived 30 August 2026)](https://web.archive.org/web/20260830180824/https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150244) - Internet Archive (primary)
11. [Several Google Merchant Center Policy Documents Updated](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-policy-docs-updates-42167.html) - Search Engine Roundtable