Unblocking a Merchant Center “Misrepresentation” suspension: auto parts + 3 new Google changes

A “Misrepresentation” suspension in Google Merchant Center is one of the nastiest ones: it carries the risk of a permanent ban, and figuring out what exactly is wrong is often hard.

Contents

1. 1. Starting point: a “Misrepresentation” suspension
2. 2. First appeal: rejected without a real review
3. 3. Change #1: “feed quotas” that break the logic
4. 4. Change #2: access restrictions when the Google Ads account is suspended
5. 5. Change #3: the appeal limit and the risk of a permanent ban
6. 6. Case summary
7. FAQ

Case Study: Merchant Center Reinstatement for “Misrepresentation”. 3 New Google Updates

In this case study, I’ll walk through a real case with an auto parts online store: how we got the Merchant Center account unblocked, which “strange” review moments we ran into, and which 3 important changes in how Google works you should take into account right now.

1. Starting point: a “Misrepresentation” suspension

An auto parts online store got its Merchant Center suspended for “Misrepresentation.” A textbook case:

• Merchant Center suspended;
• products not showing;
• Google gives a generic link to the help center with no specifics;
• the client is convinced that “everything is fine anyway.”

Then — the standard process:

• a full site audit against Google’s policies;
• fixes to content, information structure, policies, contacts, payment/shipping/returns terms;
• fixing errors in Merchant Center itself (feeds, attributes, countries, shipping settings, etc.);
• re-checking all critical points before the appeal.

After all the fixes, the account looked clean — we submit the appeal.

2. First appeal: rejected without a real review

The first appeal was rejected quickly. On closer analysis it became clear: the reviewer hadn’t even visited the site.

This is an important point: more and more often you see situations where you really have fixed everything, the site meets the requirements, but the appeal gets rejected “by inertia.”

In such cases the algorithm is simple:

1. Manually check the site once more → does everything really comply with the policies?
2. If everything is OK — submit the appeal again, even if no reason was specified.

That’s exactly what we did: we submitted the appeal a second time — and the account was unblocked.

3. Change #1: “feed quotas” that break the logic

After the unblock, a new problem appeared: the feed wasn’t accepted, and the system showed the error “Product quota exceeded in the feed,” even though:

• the feed had only ~2,000 products;
• before the suspension the same feed worked without issues;
• checks in third-party tools found no errors.

Eventually an interesting nuance came to light: if there isn’t a single active product in the account, Google sometimes won’t let you submit an appeal properly, and the feed seems to be “ignored” with strange quota errors.

What works:

• add at least 1 product manually via the Merchant Center interface;
• wait until it appears in the product list;
• only then submit the appeal/update.

After the account was finally unblocked, the quota errors disappeared and the feed started updating normally.

4. Change #2: access restrictions when the Google Ads account is suspended

In this case, the Google Ads account was suspended along with Merchant Center.

A new nuance I run into more and more often: you can’t add new users to a suspended Google Ads account.

This means that:

• the specialist can’t get access to submit the appeal themselves;
• all actions to unblock the Google Ads account have to be done by the owner / current admin;
• in some cases you have to work via remote access to the client’s computer.

The flow after the Merchant Center unblock:

1. Merchant Center unblocked → everything complies with the policies.
2. The Google Ads account owner (the client) submits the appeal for the Ads suspension using their own access.
3. After that, as a rule, the ad account gets unblocked too.

5. Change #3: the appeal limit and the risk of a permanent ban

One more important point is the limit on the number of appeals. After a few failed attempts (usually up to three), Google can:

• flag the account as “no further appeals allowed”;
• turn the suspension into a permanent one;
• practically close off the standard unblock route.

So the “spam appeals and maybe you’ll get lucky” strategy is the worst thing you can do.

Each appeal should be submitted only after:

• all policy requirements are actually met;
• the site has been checked by a specialist’s eyes;
• Merchant Center is configured correctly;
• all obvious “holes” are closed.

6. Case summary

In this project the unblock took about a week, including:

• the initial audit and site fixes;
• fixing Merchant Center settings;
• two appeals (the first effectively without review, the second successful);
• solving the feed “quota” error;
• follow-up steps to unblock the Google Ads account.

Main takeaways:

• Google is often inconsistent: some appeals are rejected “on autopilot.”
• If you really have fixed everything — don’t give up after the first rejection.
• Watch the appeal limit — “pushing the button” one time too many is dangerous.
• Budget time and money for a plan B in case the standard route is exhausted.

If your Merchant Center has already been hit with “Misrepresentation,” or you want to launch without suspensions, it makes sense to approach this systematically rather than with random appeals.