Google Merchant Center Suspended Due To Landing Page Not Working

Getting suspended in Google Merchant Center, can be confusing. To assist in finding the source of your issue, please find below a comprehensive list of common reasons why you are suspended due to landing page not working within Google Merchant Center.

Slow Loading

A slow loading landing page can be the first issue. If you have slow loading pages, consider using page speed tools to understand what is causing the slow down and resolve the culprit. There is no official information in what is regarded as slow. From industry standard, anything 5 seconds and longer is considered really slow. From working over 10 years in the eCommerce business, my recommendation is 1 second and less.

You may find this is not the only cause of the issue. Ensure to check all other issues listed below.

IP or Country Blocking

Any IP or country blocking is not allowed. This means that a customer from the UK, searching on Google Shopping Australia, needs to be able to buy the product and not be redirected or blocked. If you are redirecting users for the purpose of matching the currency, then instead of doing this automaticly, change it to a manual drop down menu to choose the preferred country.

Redirecting

Redirecting users based on IP’s is not allowed. As with the above issue, a customer from the UK, searching on Google Shopping Australia, needs to be able to buy the product in Australian Dollars and not in British Pounds. Yes, you might do this to improve the convenience of your customer, however, Google has a requirement where it needs to check and match the data of the product. When you redirect, this data no longer matches.

DNS Issues

Sometimes a bad connection between your server and Google’s crawler can happen, get in touch with your hosting company to check if there are any recent DNS issues.

Server Issues

Check your server logs for any server errors, coding errors etc… Ensure that
googlebot, googlebot-image, and adsbot-google can access your servers. All valid headers, should return a clean 200 response. When accessing a web page, you can get all sorts of responses, such as 404 (page not found) 5xx (server errors), etc…

It Works In My Browser

A common answer from merchants is that it works for me in my browser. Unfortunately, this does not mean it works for everyone. As there can be a lot of technical issues related to the inaccessibility. So using your browser to verify if your website is working is not correct.

Instead you need to check your server logs.

Down Time

A product landing page must be online 100% of the time. If you have frequent downtime issues, get in touch with your hosting company to find a solution. Systems such as Cloudflare may assist in reducing the down time issues. You can also use online tools to check for

Clear Landing Page

A clear landing page that accurately represents the product you sell, with a single price, and a single add to cart button.

PopUps

PopUps, windows, banners or anything that obstructs the product landing page information is not allowed. You can however have it in the corners where it does not block the view or process of the product information.