Google Merchant Center “Website Needs Improvement”: What Google Means and How to Fix It

Your products are still in Merchant Center, but clicks have dropped and an account issue sits at the top of the page: your website or online store “needs improvement”. Google’s fix page opens with one instruction: Make sure your website is fully functional and customized for your business and products. In practice, the Google Merchant Center website needs improvement issue comes down to three things on your store: missing information, leftover placeholder content and broken links (Google’s fix page).

Update, 29 October 2026: Google has reworded several of the help pages quoted in this post since it was first published. The quotes are Google’s current wording, checked on 29 October 2026. Where a rule itself is newer than this post, we say so.

Google only shows your products if it trusts your store. This issue is Google saying your store doesn’t yet look finished enough to trust. Everything on Google’s list is something you can see and fix yourself.

Update, 28 October 2026: Google has rewritten both of its pages on this issue since we first published this post. The fix page now lists three steps (necessary information, placeholders, broken links), and the policy page, now titled “Editorial and professional requirements”, puts “Website needs improvement” next to five related issues. The quotes and steps below follow the current pages. The earlier fix page also asked merchants to check their domain name and that the product details and categories on their site match their product data; the current fix page doesn’t list those, but Google’s issues page still names mismatched categories as a website issue.

Google Merchant Center website needs improvement: what does it mean?

Merchants usually see it as an account-level issue worded “Website or online store needs improvement”, sometimes with a note that it limits the visibility of all products. Google’s help pages use the shorter name “Website needs improvement”. We couldn’t find a Google help page that uses the longer wording, so this post works from the pages that use the short one.

Google’s policy page defines the issue as Websites that are not fully-functional, lack business-specific content, provide unclear information, or display incomplete product details. (Editorial and professional requirements).

What it does to your products: the same page describes an account issue that limits product visibility, in these words: Your account has an issue and is operating with reserved functionality, therefore your products have limited visibility. Our reading is that this is the state the “limits visibility” note refers to. Google doesn’t say how much visibility you lose.

It can also arrive as a warning. Google’s issues page says During the warning period your products will continue to appear across Google, however their performance may be limited. If the issues in a warning aren’t resolved by the end of the warning period, the same page says the account will be suspended. So treat it as urgent, even while your products still show.

It isn’t the same as “Limited performance”

Merchant Center also shows product-level warnings such as “Limited performance due to missing value”. Those are about one product’s data, such as a missing brand or GTIN, and the fix is in your product data (how to fix limited performance warnings). Website needs improvement is about your store as a whole, and the fix is on your website.

What does Google want you to fix?

Google’s fix page names three things. Work through all three before you request a review.

1. Necessary information. Google says A website must contain contact information and policy pages, and names a clear About page, a return policy, shipping information and business information. Google’s contact information page adds: Ensure your business name, address, and phone number are identical in your website footer, contact page, and Merchant Center settings. See how to fix missing contact information.
2. Placeholders. Google names “Lorem Ipsum” text and default template images, and gives a template block that asks you to add customer reviews as its example. Of placeholders, it says These prevent your store from being verified as a trusted business.
3. Broken links. Google says Links on your website need to be responsive and shouldn’t lead to 404 errors, or redirect back to the home page instead of the intended destination. A link that quietly sends shoppers back to your home page counts as broken. Google also says Check that your social media pages are linked correctly on your website.

Which other website issues sit next to it?

Google’s policy page lists five more website issues beside “Website needs improvement”. If your store has one of these, fix it at the same time:

• Site inaccessible: an expired or parked domain, an outage, or pages that return errors.
• Insufficient contact information: missing contact methods, or details that contradict your Merchant Center account.
• Missing return and refund policy: an empty, incomplete or hard-to-find policy.
• Login required: Google says Confirm that all landing pages and product details remain available to the public without authentication requirements. A store still behind a password page fails this.
• Users cannot complete purchase: a broken cart or checkout, or a checkout that asks for something like a VAT ID for a normal purchase. Google says Remove non-essential fields from your checkout flow.

How do I find these problems on my own store?

Set aside half an hour and look at your store the way a shopper does.

1. Open your store in a private window, signed out. If you see a password page, a “coming soon” page or a login prompt, start there.
2. Click every link in your main menu and footer. Note any that show a “page not found” error, land on an empty page, or bounce to the home page.
3. Click each social icon. Check it opens your own profile, not the platform’s, the theme maker’s or an empty one.
4. Open each policy page. Look for text in square brackets, another store’s name, a sample address, or rules that don’t match how you really ship and refund.
5. Go through your home page section by section. Look for sample testimonials, “Your heading here” style text, stock images that came with the theme, and empty blocks.
6. Open a handful of product pages. Check for “image coming soon” placeholders and descriptions you never finished. Google’s issues page also lists Mismatched categories between your online store and product data, so check the category matches what you sell.
7. Search for leftovers. Search Google for site:yourstore.com "lorem ipsum", and repeat with phrases from your theme’s demo text. This only finds pages Google has already indexed.
8. Run a broken-link checker over the whole site, including old blog posts and images. If you use Google Search Console, its page indexing report lists pages Google found returning “Not found (404)”.
9. Compare your contact details with Settings → Business info in Merchant Center, word for word.

The free store check reads your policy pages and contact details and checks that your store is open to visitors, which covers several of these steps. Menus, social icons and old blog links still need your own clicks.

On Shopify, WooCommerce and other platforms

Shopify

• Online Store → Themes → Customize: go through every section on the home page and in the footer. Sample review or testimonial blocks, “image with text” sections with the theme’s images, and empty collection blocks are the usual leftovers.
• Theme settings → Social media (the name varies by theme): fill in your own profiles and clear the rest.
• Online Store → Navigation: check each menu item still points to a page, collection or product that exists.
• Settings → Policies: if you started from a template, read every line and replace anything generic.
• Online Store → Preferences: make sure the store password is turned off once you sell to the public.

Google’s page for Shopify merchants says Remove all placeholder text and fix any broken links. When you’re done, it describes requesting a review from the Google & YouTube app: Sales channels → Google & YouTube → Settings → Request review (Google’s Shopify page).

WooCommerce and WordPress

• WordPress defaults: delete or rewrite the “Sample Page” and the “Hello world!” post if they’re still live.
• Theme demo content: demo imports add pages, testimonials, footer widget text and social links that point to the theme maker. Check Appearance → Widgets and Appearance → Menus (or the Site Editor on block themes).
• Site visibility: in WooCommerce → Settings → Site visibility, make sure the store isn’t in “Coming soon” mode (WooCommerce’s Coming soon guide).
• Old links: a changed permalink setting or a deleted page breaks every link to it. Add a redirect to the new page rather than leaving a 404.
• Old blog posts and media: links and images in old posts break quietly. A crawl of the whole site finds them; a plugin that only checks recent content may not.

Request the review from Merchant Center itself (steps below).

Wix, Squarespace and other platforms

Templates on these platforms come with sample text, sample images and sometimes sample pages and blog posts. Check every page in your site menu, including hidden ones that are still published, and the footer’s social icons. Check the site’s visibility or password setting too. Then request the review in Merchant Center.

When should I request a review, and how?

Only once every fix is live and you’ve checked it in a private window. In Merchant Center, Google’s review page describes the path: Products → Needs attention → View setup and policy issues, then “I fixed the issue” and “Request review”.

Google’s fix page says These crawls usually finish within 24 to 48 hours. For account reviews, Google’s review page now says The review may take up to 2 weeks to complete. Other Google pages still say up to 7 business days.

Don’t rush the first request. Google says If your issues aren’t resolved by the second review attempt, a one-week cool down period may begin. If your account has moved on to a Misrepresentation suspension, read what each line of the Misrepresentation email means and how to fix a Misrepresentation suspension.

What we see in real cases

• Long threads, few answers. One Shopify Community thread on this exact wording has been running since 2023. Merchants in it tried resizing their logo, changing image formats and filling in product attributes. Nobody in the thread confirmed that any of these cleared the issue. Our reading: those are guesses about product data, while Google’s fix page points at the store’s pages.
• One tool isn’t enough. A WooCommerce store owner wrote up their case: a broken-link plugin reported nothing, but a second checker found more than a hundred broken links, mostly in old blog posts and images. They also had placeholder text in their review and contact forms and products in the wrong category. The issue cleared on their third review request, after a cool-down.
• Placeholders found too late. In another case, a merchant fixed footer contact details and removed placeholder text only after their reviews had run out. The same checks, done before the first request, cost nothing.

FAQ

Is “website needs improvement” a suspension?

Not necessarily. Merchants usually see it as an account issue that limits the visibility of their products, and Google describes that state as an account “operating with reserved functionality”. Google’s issues page says an account can be suspended if the issues in a warning aren’t resolved by the end of the warning period.

How long does it take to clear after I fix it?

Google says a small ad edit or an appeal starts a fresh crawl that usually finishes within 24 to 48 hours, and that a review may take up to 2 weeks (some of its pages still say 7 business days). Google doesn’t say how long it takes for visibility to come back.

Does Google tell you which page needs improvement?

Google’s fix page lists the kinds of problems to look for, not where it found them on your store. Check every page a shopper can reach from your menus and footer, not only the home page.

Will adding more product details fix it?

Only if incomplete product details are part of your problem. Google’s definition mentions them, but its fix page centres on information pages, placeholders and broken links, so check those first.