Our policy
| In order to provide a quality customer experience, Google requires that all free listings meet high professional and editorial standards. We only allow listings that are clear and professional in appearance. These listings should lead customers to products and landing pages that are relevant, useful, and easy to interact with. |
Technical requirements
The product data specification defines the structure and format for providing data about your products so that attractive and professional listings can be created. Your listings will need to comply with the product data specification in order to serve, so make sure to review the attributes and their requirements carefully.
Examples of what's not allowed
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Website needs improvement
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Websites that aren’t fully-functional, don’t have business specific content, have information that is difficult to understand, or display product content that is incomplete.
- Examples: Website that has broken links, templated content, placeholders of text or placeholders for images.
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Insufficient contact information
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Websites that are missing required contact information, have unverified business information in CSS Center or both.
- Examples: Website is missing contact information (i.e. none of the following is present: social media link, contact email address, or phone number); CSS product pages has missing contact information, such as a physical business address or a verified phone number; contact information is missing from both the website and CSS product pages.
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Usefulness
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Login is required or content is unnecessarily difficult or frustrating to navigate.
- Examples: Websites with pop-ups or interstitial ads that interfere with the customer’s ability to see the content requested; sites that require a visitor to enter a username or password to see the content requested; sites that disable or interfere with the browser’s back button; websites that don’t load quickly on most popular browsers and devices, are under construction, not functioning, require download of an additional application to view the landing page (aside from common browser plug-ins), or lead to a file, email address, or error messages.
Website that isn’t fully functional.
- Examples: Links for Contact Us information, social media business profiles, blogs, etc. on landing pages that don’t work and/or lead to an unrelated page. Ensure all links on the website are working and point to relevant pages.
Website that has incomplete or difficult to understand business information.
- Examples: Contact information, shipping information, or a frequently asked questions section on the website is incomplete or unclear for customers to take action on. Ensure that business information on your website is complete and easy to understand.
Not all customers are able to complete their purchase on merchants’ websites presented on CSS product page.
- Examples: Business information fields in merchants’ checkout process are required. Customers from certain internet locations (IP addresses) can’t complete the checkout process.
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Spelling and grammar
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CSS product pages that don’t use commonly accepted spelling and grammar.
- Examples: "Flowers here buy" or "Buy flwres here"
Punctuation, symbols, capitalization, spacing, or repetition that aren’t used correctly or for their intended purpose.
- Examples: Excessive or gimmicky use of numbers, letters, symbols, punctuation, emoticons, emoji, repetition, or spacing, including: f1owers, fllllowers, fl@wers, Flowers!!!, f*l*o*w*e*r*s, FLOWERS, FlOwErS, F.L.O.W.E.R.S, flowers-flowers-flowers!, f l o w e r s, buyflowershere. For specific guidelines on how to comply with this policy, refer to the title [title] and the description [description] attributes in the product data specification.
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Unclear relevance
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Listings in CSS product pages that aren’t relevant to the landing page.
- Examples: Product title or description that isn’t relevant to the product promoted, generic landing pages or different product landing pages. For specific guidelines on how to comply with this policy, refer to the title [title] and description [description] attributes in the Product data specification.
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Style requirements
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Listings in CSS product page that don’t use the features of the listing for their intended purpose.
- Examples: Listings that use the title field as an additional description field; listings that display irrelevant or obtrusive information in images. For specific guidelines on how to comply with this policy, refer to the title [title] and description [description] attributes in the Product data specification.
Website that uses generic placeholders or templated content.
- Examples: Generic text on the website that says “Add customer reviews and testimonials here” or an empty box that says “lorem ipsum.” Ensure text and images on the website are tailored to your business.
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Domain safety
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CSS product pages or associated site domains that Google deems unsafe.
- Examples: Domain page deemed unsafe as a result of hacking or other activity causing the site to become compromised. If Google detects suspicious signals, it may block customers from visiting your site from some browsers and from Google Search.
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Product details
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Website that has inaccurate, missing, or duplicate product details.
Examples: Product descriptions and specifications that are unrelated to the product image or listing. The same product details being used for multiple products without differentiation. Ensure the product details on the website are accurate and unique for each product.