updated 13 July 2015
In normal circumstances a data feed review will take up to 3 working days. However in certain situations this can take longer. There are two elements Google validates, which are your website domain and the data feed.
What are the website validations?
Secure Checkout
Google validates your checkout system. If you are collecting personal data than Google requires your checkout to be SSL secured. Meaning that the url must be on HTTPS and not HTTP. In some situations even if you are using a payment gateway that is hosted on a 3rd party website and you are collecting personal data, the chances are that you will need to have a SSL certificate.
Returns Policy
A returns policy is required, a link in the footer pointing to your returns policy page is required.
What are the most common reasons why my review is being delayed?
- The image supplied is returning an error
- Check if images are all loading and a robots.txt is not blocking Google Crawler
- You have added multiple data feeds, where the some ID might be the same
- Download all your data feeds and check if ID’s supplied are unique
- Your data feed might not have been updated frequently enough
- It is required that your data feed is updated at least once every 30 days
- You might have a Policy violation
- Have a read through these articles that cover Google Shopping Policy Violations
- Your products might violate the target countries laws
- Check for Warnings and Errors
- Ensure you have no errors or warnings in your data feed, you can check this by downloading a Google Merchant Error Report
What does Google check for in the data feed?
Certain products are in violations with Google’s or the Target Country Law’s. Which means that these products in no circumstances can be listed on Google Shopping.
Here is a list of restricted products.
- Aids to Pass Drug Tests
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Casinos and Gambling Equipment
- Dangerous Products
- Endangered Species
- Fake Documents
- Financial or Other Related Products
- Healthcare and Medicine
- Human Remains and Body Parts
- Illegal Hacking
- Immovable Property
- Live Animals
- Online Gaming Goods and Currency
- Stolen Property and Lock Picking Devices
- Traffic Devices
- Vehicles
What if my review is taking longer than 3 working days?
If the review process is taking longer than 3 days and you have fixed all your data feed errors and checked the above requirements. You can force a re-crawl by appending a query string to your image url’s.
For example if your image is http://www.example.com/myimage.jpg than you can append a query like this http://www.example.com/myimage.jpg?v=06072015
This will force Google to recrawl your data and might resolve your review process. However if this does not resolve your review process than I recommend you get in touch with Google Adwords Team or hire a Google Shopping expert / consultant.
Google Shopping Specialist
