126 defined terms covering Google Merchant Center compliance, disapprovals, feed specifications, Google Shopping, and AI visibility. Every entry cites Google's own policy docs where applicable.
Google's product data platform where merchants submit structured feeds of their products so Google can display them across Shopping ads, free listings, and other Google surfaces. Every Google Shopping advertiser needs a GMC account.
A numeric rating (0-100) summarizing how well a merchant's feed and landing pages meet Google's policies. Calculated by rolling together check results across 27 categories including feed attributes, structured data, pricing consistency, and account-level signals.
An automated compliance scan that checks a store URL or GMC feed against Google's policy and data quality rules. FeedShield runs 250+ individual checks in under two minutes per audit.
One of 27 logical groupings FeedShield uses to organize compliance checks — feed integrity, structured data, image quality, landing page health, restricted products, etc. Each category can be passed or failed independently.
A hash of the audit input snapshot (domain, GMC account ID, product sample, timestamp) used to deduplicate re-audits and to chain successive audits into a comparable history. Two audits with the same fingerprint return cached results to save compute.
The frequency at which a store is re-audited automatically. Healthy stores default to weekly. Stores in at-risk or suspended state escalate to daily until they stabilize. Configurable per-store inside FeedShield's multi-store workspace.
FeedShield's classification of each finding into critical, high, medium, low, or info. Critical issues block approval entirely. High issues are likely to cause disapproval if unresolved. Medium and low are warnings or quality improvements.
See also: Approval blocker
An issue severe enough that GMC will refuse to approve products until it is resolved. Common blockers: missing business name across properties, hidden subscription terms, missing refund policy, fake-review schema. FeedShield surfaces all blockers on a single dashboard tile.
See also: Severity tier
An issue with a deterministic remediation path — paste text into footer, set an attribute, add a schema property. Distinguished from structural issues (e.g., brand mismatch across stores) which need strategic decisions, not a one-line patch.
Risk remaining after all fixable issues have been resolved. Captures structural factors like new domain age, prior suspension history, or thin business footprint. Even a 100-score audit can carry residual risk that affects suspension probability.
A GMC account with no active disapprovals, no warnings, no policy strikes in the last 90 days, and a compliance score above 85. Healthy accounts are eligible for full Shopping surfaces including Performance Max and Buy on Google.
An account showing one or more leading indicators of imminent disapproval: warnings, structured-data mismatches, policy footer regressions, sudden traffic drops. FeedShield flags at-risk accounts on the dashboard for accelerated audits.
See also: Healthy account
Google's designation that a specific product or entire account has been rejected from Shopping surfaces because of a policy violation or data quality issue. Disapproved products stop serving ads and lose free-listing visibility until the issue is fixed and the product re-approved.
See also: Account suspension, Warning
The most severe enforcement action — Google removes the entire GMC account from Shopping surfaces, not just individual products. Common triggers: misrepresentation, circumvention of systems, repeated policy violations. Recovery requires a formal appeal with evidence of remediation.
See also: Disapproval, Misrepresentation, Reappeal
Google's pre-disapproval signal that a product or account has a detectable issue which will lead to disapproval if not corrected. Warnings are the best time to fix — a fix at warning stage prevents traffic loss, a fix after disapproval has a lag.
See also: Disapproval
A policy category covering deceptive or misleading practices — fake reviews, hidden fees, bait-and-switch pricing, undisclosed business details, or concealed product attributes. One of the top three reasons for account-level suspensions and the hardest category to appeal successfully.
See also: Account suspension, Reappeal
A follow-up appeal submitted after an initial appeal is denied. Reappeals are generally granted only when the merchant provides genuinely new evidence — restated appeals without new information are routinely rejected.
See also: Account suspension
A misrepresentation sub-category covering deceptive discounts, fake countdown timers, manipulated 'compare at' pricing, and promotion text that doesn't match the offer on the landing page. One of Google's fastest-growing enforcement areas in 2025-2026.
See also: Misrepresentation
A suspension category triggered when the store fails to provide enough identifying information for Google to verify it as a real business — missing about page, no contact info, no business name, no physical address. Often pairs with new domains.
See also: Misrepresentation
A policy category covering deceptive checkout flows: hidden subscriptions, undisclosed recurring charges, exploitative cancellation processes, bait-and-switch fulfillment. Suspensions in this category are difficult to lift and often require structural store redesign.
See also: Misrepresentation, Hidden subscription
A severe enforcement category covering attempts to evade Google's policy enforcement: creating new accounts to replace suspended ones, masking domains, cloaking content, using bots to manipulate reviews. Almost always results in a hard suspension.
See also: Hard suspension
Products that mimic the brand or features of a genuine product with intent to deceive (fake luxury goods, knockoff electronics, pirated software). Listing counterfeit goods triggers an immediate, often permanent suspension across all linked accounts.
A merchant whose account has been suspended multiple times for the same policy violation. Google escalates enforcement against repeat offenders — fewer warnings, faster suspensions, harder appeal path.
A suspension that requires extensive remediation and a multi-step appeal to resolve. Triggered by serious policy categories like misrepresentation, counterfeit, or circumvention. Distinguished from soft suspensions which auto-lift on remediation.
See also: Account suspension, Soft suspension
A suspension that auto-lifts once specific data issues are corrected (e.g., feed errors, missing schema, image quality). Distinguished from hard suspensions which require formal appeal even after remediation.
See also: Hard suspension
An internal Google count of policy violations against an account. Accumulating strikes accelerates enforcement and reduces tolerance for borderline issues. Strike counters are reset only after a sustained period of clean compliance.
A structured file (XML, TSV, or Google Sheet) that describes every product a merchant wants to list on Google Shopping. Each row is one product; each column is an attribute like title, description, price, availability, or GTIN. Fed to Google via direct upload, scheduled fetch, or Content/Merchant API.
See also: Content API, Merchant API
A unique 8, 12, 13, or 14-digit identifier assigned to a product by GS1 and its affiliates. Includes UPC (North America), EAN (Europe), and JAN (Japan). Required for most branded products on Google Shopping — missing or incorrect GTIN is a frequent disapproval reason.
The unique code a manufacturer assigns to a specific product model. Used alongside brand to identify products that don't have GTINs (custom or older items). Less authoritative than GTIN but accepted when GTIN is genuinely unavailable.
The main identifier shown in Shopping results. Google recommends brand, product name, and distinguishing attributes in that order, under 150 characters. Promotional text ("Sale!", "Free shipping") is disallowed and triggers disapprovals.
A 500-5000 character narrative describing the product's features and use cases. Google ranks Shopping results partly on description relevance, so keyword-rich, accurate descriptions outrank thin or duplicated ones.
One of four values — in_stock, out_of_stock, preorder, or backorder — declared per product in the feed. Must match the landing page at all times; mismatched availability (in_stock in feed but out of stock on page) is one of the fastest-detected disapproval reasons.
When the price in the product feed differs from the price shown on the landing page at crawl time. Even small mismatches (currency rounding, tax display) can disapprove products. Google crawls prices independently of feed updates, so out-of-sync prices are common.
See also: Availability attribute
A unique merchant-assigned identifier for each product in the feed. Must be stable across feed updates — changing the id for an existing product creates a new product record and resets approval history.
An identifier shared by all variants of the same product (sizes, colors). Lets Google group variants together in Shopping results. All rows with the same item_group_id must share core attributes (title, description, brand) while differing on variant attributes (color, size).
Up to 10 secondary product images per row. Used by Google to populate carousels in Shopping results. Each must be a direct URL to a hosted image meeting Google's image requirements (no overlays, no watermarks, no promotional text).
A required attribute for apparel and accessory categories. Up to three color names separated by slashes. Must use plain English color names; codes, hex values, or proprietary palette names are rejected.
Required for apparel, shoes, jewelry. Use standard size systems (US, EU, UK) declared via size_system. Custom sizes must include unit (e.g., '32 in'). Critical for performance because Shopping filters use this attribute.
Required for apparel categories. Allowed values: male, female, unisex. Inferred from product context but disapprovals occur when an obvious gender mismatch is declared (e.g., 'female' on a tuxedo).
Required for apparel. Allowed: newborn, infant, toddler, kids, adult. Helps Google match products to age-segmented searches. Disapprovals occur when the value contradicts the product image or description.
Declares whether a product is new, refurbished, or used. Refurbished and used products must include explicit disclosure on the landing page and meet warranty/refund requirements that Google considers acceptable.
The product brand as recognized by the manufacturer. Critical for matching with GTIN data. Generic brands ('OEM', 'unbranded') are usable only when truly unbranded; using them for branded products causes mismatches.
A no-required-identifier flag. Set to FALSE only when a product genuinely has no GTIN, MPN, or brand (e.g., custom one-of-a-kind items). Misusing this flag to skip GTIN requirements is detected and disapproves the product.
Per-product shipping cost override, used when shipping varies from the account-level shipping settings. Required when shipping isn't uniform across the catalog. Mismatched shipping (feed says free, landing page charges) is a fast-disapproval trigger.
Per-product tax override, used in regions where tax is calculated outside the displayed price (US). Required when tax differs from account-level tax settings. Must match the tax displayed at checkout.
An optional reduced price submitted alongside the regular price. Must be displayed on the landing page during the declared sale window. Faking sale prices (price never sold at regular price) is an untrustworthy-promotion violation.
See also: Untrustworthy promotions
A start-and-end timestamp pair declaring the active period of a sale price. Must match exactly the promotion's visibility on the landing page. Common error: sale_price declared but no effective_date set, leading to permanent-discount disapprovals.
Five optional merchant-defined labels (free-text) used to segment products for bidding in Google Ads. Not visible to consumers. Common uses: profit margin tier, seasonality, supplier code, performance bucket.
The product's category from Google's published taxonomy (Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Outerwear > Coats & Jackets, etc.). Required for some categories (apparel, media). Incorrect category causes irrelevant traffic and matching failures.
A merchant-defined free-text category (your own taxonomy). Used alongside google_product_category. Helps with bidding segmentation in Google Ads but doesn't affect approval decisions.
A flag declaring the product is sold as a multi-unit bundle of identical items (e.g., 6-pack of batteries). The numeric quantity must match the listing. Disapprovals occur when feed says multipack=6 but listing shows a single unit.
Declares the product is a merchant-defined bundle of different items sold together (skincare gift set, gaming bundle). Distinct from multipack. Bundle pricing must reflect the bundle, not the individual items.
Declares the product contains adult content. Triggers Google's adult-content policy gating and limits surfaces where the product can appear. Misdeclaring this attribute (false negative for adult content) leads to suspension.
The canonical landing page URL for the product. Must resolve to a page selling the product as described. Must use HTTPS, must not redirect through trackers excessively, must not require login to view price.
Optional mobile-specific landing page URL. Most modern stores use responsive design and skip this; only set it when the mobile experience is on a different URL (m.example.com or app deep link).
Optional date after which the product listing should be removed from Shopping. Use for limited-edition or time-sensitive products. Listings without expiration_date stay active until manually removed or until 30 days after the last feed upload that included them.
A short bullet-style feature description (max 100 characters each, up to 100 highlights). Surfaces in Shopping result enhancements. Should be objective product facts, not promotional language.
Optional URL to a lifestyle image showing the product in use (vs the plain studio image_link). Improves CTR in some Shopping placements. Must follow same image quality rules as the primary image.
Required for energy-consuming products sold in the EU (appliances, lighting). Uses the EU energy label scale (A+++ to G). Must match the official EU energy label that ships with the product.
Paid product listings in Google Search results and on the Shopping tab. Driven by the merchant's GMC feed plus bidding in Google Ads. Distinct from free listings which appear without bidding.
Organic, unpaid product results in the Google Shopping tab and other surfaces. Requires a verified GMC account and compliant feed. Scale is smaller than Shopping ads but carries zero marginal cost per click.
Google's automated campaign type that serves across Shopping, Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, and Gmail based on a single set of goals and asset groups. Most Shopping advertisers now run Performance Max. Feed quality directly drives campaign ROAS.
In the EU, a third-party partner that submits product feeds on behalf of merchants to Google Shopping. EU antitrust ruling (2017) requires Google to treat CSS partners equally to Google's own Shopping service. Many EU merchants save 20%+ on CPCs by using a CSS partner.
The unique numeric identifier Google assigns to a GMC account. Required to link GMC to Google Ads, and referenced in every API call and policy communication.
The classic shopping campaign type with manual bidding control and visibility into per-product performance. Largely replaced by Performance Max for most advertisers, though still used when granular control is required.
A high/medium/low setting on Standard Shopping campaigns that determines which campaign serves when multiple campaigns target the same product. Used in tiered-bidding strategies to split brand from generic queries.
An automated shopping campaign type that combined Shopping and Display surfaces. Discontinued by Google in 2022 in favor of Performance Max. Existing campaigns were auto-upgraded.
Time-limited offers (percent off, free shipping, free gift) attached to Shopping listings and surfaced as 'Special offer' tags. Requires program enrollment and a separate promotion feed with strict eligibility windows.
Aggregated star ratings shown alongside Shopping ads, pulled from approved review sources (the merchant's own reviews via schema, plus third-party providers like Trustpilot, Bazaarvoice). Requires 50+ reviews across the catalog and at least 3 per product.
See also: Seller ratings
Aggregate star rating for the merchant overall (not per product). Sourced from Google's own customer-reviews program, Customer Reviews Plus, and approved third-party survey providers. Surfaces on text ads and Shopping ads.
See also: Product ratings
Display ads that personalize to show visitors the exact products they viewed. Powered by GMC feed plus Google Ads dynamic remarketing tag. Requires linked Ads + GMC accounts and a healthy feed.
Shopping ads featuring in-store availability and store location. Requires a separate local feed updated daily, GMC business address verification, and pickup option declarations. Strong driver for omnichannel merchants.
Organic version of Local Inventory Ads — unpaid local-availability listings on Google. Same data requirements as LIA. Useful for omnichannel sellers who want local visibility without paid spend.
The umbrella term for all Google properties where Shopping content can appear — Shopping tab, Search, YouTube, Images, Maps, Discover. Feed compliance is the gating factor for visibility on every surface.
A merchant program where Google handled checkout directly for participating products. Discontinued in 2023. Checkout flows now happen on the merchant's site only.
The dedicated Shopping vertical in Google Search results. Mixes paid Shopping ads with free listings. Free listings are visible only on the Shopping tab; paid ads appear here plus the main Search results page.
The process of proving domain ownership to Google (via Search Console, Google Analytics tag, HTML file upload, or DNS TXT record). Required to link a store domain to a GMC account. Verification must be maintained continuously — removing the verification method breaks the link.
See also: Website claim
The act of assigning a verified website to a specific GMC account. Verification proves ownership; claiming assigns that ownership to one GMC account at a time. Two GMC accounts cannot claim the same URL.
See also: Website verification
Google's 2026 identity-verification flow requiring the merchant to submit a live video of themselves reading a verification code. Introduced to combat misrepresentation and shell-company fraud. Increasingly mandatory for accounts with disapproval history.
See also: Misrepresentation
A multi-client GMC account that manages feeds for multiple merchant sub-accounts under one umbrella. Used by agencies and platforms (e.g., Shopify Shopping integration) to avoid the overhead of separate accounts per client.
A parent GMC account that holds sub-accounts. Each sub-account has its own feed, products, and approval history; the MCA provides unified billing, user management, and reporting across them.
A GMC account nested under an MCA. Behaves as an independent account for policy and product approval, while inheriting user permissions and billing from the parent. Used by agencies and multi-brand operators.
See also: Multi-client account
The set of GMC settings declaring who the merchant is — business name, legal address, contact email, customer service phone. Must match the business name and contact info displayed on the storefront.
The physical address declared in GMC settings. Must match the address on the contact page, in WHOIS where visible, and in payment processor records. Mismatches trigger insufficient-information suspensions.
See also: Insufficient information
The phone number and email address Google uses to reach the merchant for support and verification. Required visible on the storefront. Missing or generic contact info (no phone, only a contact form) is a common misrepresentation signal.
The initial 4-12 weeks after a new GMC account starts serving ads, during which Google applies stricter scrutiny and tighter approval thresholds. Cleaner during ramp-up means a longer healthy run after.
A temporary freeze on a GMC account, typically pending verification (video verification, identity reverification) or while a policy investigation is in progress. Ads stop serving but the account isn't suspended.
A re-running of identity checks against a previously verified account, triggered by a policy strike, ownership change, or random audit. May include video verification, document upload, or address confirmation.
See also: Video verification
Google's governing rules for what may be advertised via Shopping. Covers prohibited products (weapons, adult content, counterfeit), restricted products (alcohol, prescription drugs), and editorial standards. Updated multiple times per year.
Content Google will not allow on Shopping under any circumstance — hate speech, dangerous products, counterfeit goods, child safety violations. Listing prohibited content leads to immediate account suspension.
Product categories that are allowed on Shopping only in specific regions and under specific conditions (alcohol, pharmacy, gambling, financial services). Each category has its own eligibility requirements, disclaimers, and certifications.
Google's rules on how product listings should be written — no promotional text in titles, no gimmicky capitalization or punctuation, accurate attribute use. Violations don't disapprove the product directly but hurt performance and quality score.
Restricted-product rules for credit cards, personal loans, crypto, investment products. Requires region-specific certifications, disclosures of fees and APR, and licensing verification. Tightest in the US, UK, and EU.
Strict gating around medical devices, supplements, OTC drugs, and prescription medicines. Most pharma is restricted to certified pharmacies. Supplements require disclaimers and ingredient claims that match the landing page.
Country-specific eligibility for casinos, sports betting, lotteries, and fantasy sports. Requires operator licensing, age-gate disclosure, and responsible-gambling resources. Disallowed entirely in many regions.
Restricted-product rules for beer, wine, and spirits. Country-specific eligibility, age-gating requirements, no targeting minors, no promoting excessive consumption. Some categories (hard liquor in the US) require additional certifications.
Rules governing sexually suggestive content, adult media, and adult-oriented products. Most adult content is disallowed entirely; some categories (sex toys, intimate apparel) are permitted with strict labeling and SafeSearch filtering.
Prohibited content covering firearms, ammunition, explosives, fireworks (in many regions), and items designed to evade security screening. Knives and other edged weapons fall in a restricted gray zone with regional rules.
Disallowed: traditional tobacco products, vape devices in most regions, smoking accessories. Restricted: cessation aids (nicotine gum, patches) which require eligibility and disclaimers. One of the strictest enforcement categories.
Umbrella for high-risk merchant behaviors: pyramid schemes, fraudulent payment processing, deceptive financial offers, sale of human or government property. Triggers permanent suspension and bans on linked accounts.
Machine-readable metadata embedded in a web page describing its content using a controlled vocabulary (usually Schema.org). On Shopping, Product schema with price, availability, GTIN, and aggregateRating is required for most rich results and frequently causes disapprovals when missing or mismatched.
A specific Schema.org type describing a purchasable product. Required properties include name, image, description, offers (with price, priceCurrency, availability), brand, and either GTIN or MPN. Feeds Google's crawl data and directly affects Shopping feed health.
See also: Structured data
Google's legacy API (v2.1) for programmatic feed management and account control. Deprecated in favor of Merchant API and reaching end-of-service on 2026-08-18. Any merchant integration still calling Content API must migrate before that date to keep functioning.
See also: Merchant API
Google's current (v1) API for Merchant Center, replacing Content API. Offers similar feed, account, inventory, and reporting endpoints with cleaner structure and support for modern features like Merchant Reviews and Checkout on Google.
See also: Content API
A protocol supported by Bing, Yandex, and several other engines that lets site owners ping search engines with URLs they want crawled, rather than waiting for the next scheduled crawl. Faster indexation for time-sensitive content like new products or blog posts.
The preferred URL for a piece of content when duplicate or near-duplicate URLs exist. Declared via rel=canonical tag. Google uses the canonical URL when matching feed link attributes to landing pages — mismatched canonicals can cause feed/page mismatches.
HTML attribute and Sitemap signal declaring which language and region a page targets. Critical for international Shopping setups — missing or wrong hreflang sends international shoppers to the wrong storefront and creates indexing duplicates.
A text file at /robots.txt declaring which crawlers may access which paths on the site. Must not block Googlebot from product URLs or essential resources. Common error: blocking image directories, which silently breaks Shopping image crawls.
A structured list of URLs the site wants indexed, submitted via Google Search Console. Helps Google discover new products faster. Should include all product URLs, kept fresh, and reference lastmod timestamps for changed pages.
Navigation path schema (BreadcrumbList) showing the hierarchy from home to current page. Renders in Shopping and Search results, improving CTR. Required by Google to surface category hierarchy in some Shopping placements.
A meta-tag protocol declaring how a page renders when shared on social platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest). Not used directly for Shopping but affects shared product links' rich previews.
An older structured-data syntax using HTML attributes (itemscope, itemprop). Largely superseded by JSON-LD. Google still parses microdata but JSON-LD is now the recommended format for product schema.
Another legacy structured-data syntax. Like microdata, still parseable but no longer recommended. Mixing microdata, RDFa, and JSON-LD on the same page causes parsing conflicts.
Google's free tool at search.google.com/test/rich-results that parses a URL's structured data and reports which rich-result types are eligible plus any errors. The fastest first check after deploying a schema change.
Verifying that JSON-LD blocks parse without errors and contain all required properties for the declared type. Critical for Product schema — missing offers.price or offers.availability causes silent disapprovals.
Google's bundle of UX metrics: Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS), mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, no intrusive interstitials. Affects organic ranking; not a direct disapproval trigger but correlates with Shopping quality scores.
See also: Core Web Vitals
Three user-experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, replaced FID in 2024), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Poor CWV correlates with lower Shopping CTR and conversion rate.
See also: Page Experience signals
Google's evaluation of whether a page works well on mobile devices — readable text without zoom, tap targets sized appropriately, no horizontal scrolling, viewport configured. Required for Shopping; mobile-broken pages can be disapproved at the page level.
How fast a page loads and becomes interactive. Measured via PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse, or real user monitoring. Slow product pages hurt Shopping bid efficiency and reduce free-listing ranking.
Encrypted HTTP. Required for Shopping — Google rejects non-HTTPS product landing pages. Certificate must be valid, not expired, not self-signed. Mixed content (HTTPS page loading HTTP resources) is flagged.
Google's program where buyers complete checkout on the merchant site (vs the deprecated Buy on Google flow). Requires a smooth, conversion-optimized checkout, transparent fees, and clear shipping/return policies above the buy button.
How Google crawls a page — fetching the HTML, then rendering JavaScript to see the final state. Heavy client-side rendering can cause Google to see different content than users do, which is a frequent cause of feed/page mismatches.
Modern stores often load product data via JavaScript. Google can render JS, but with delays and quotas. If schema or pricing is injected via JS, Google may see an empty product page on first crawl and disapprove until rendering completes.
See also: Fetch and render (crawl)
The discipline of optimizing content to be cited and surfaced inside AI-powered answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Bing Copilot). Distinct from classic SEO — emphasizes entity coverage, structured data, and clear factual chunks.
Google's AI-generated summary at the top of Search results. Pulls from indexed pages and structured data. Being cited inside AI Overviews requires authoritative content, clear schema, and entity-level visibility (knowledge panel coverage).
The glossary grows as Google updates its policies. If there's a term that should be defined here, tell us at hello@feedshield.ai.
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