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Google Merchant Center problems on WordPress

For WordPress sites without WooCommerce: the store check, with fix steps that name the WordPress screens.

Check my store freeCreate a free account

How to start

Run the free store check, or create a ShieldKit account and add your site. The first full store check (up to 11 checks) is free.

The free check on the website runs 7 of the 11 checks, with no account and nothing to install.

How fixes work

  • Every problem comes with plain-English fix steps that name the WordPress screens, such as Pages and Settings › Privacy.
  • With Recovery, we write your refund and shipping policies from your answers, and draft your privacy policy and terms, with steps for which page each goes on.
  • You paste each one into the WordPress editor and press Update.

Prices and hidden problems

  • Price Watch checks the prices on your product pages on WordPress: the price Google reads against the price shoppers see, and strikethrough prices that aren’t a real discount.
  • With Google Merchant Center connected, it also compares each product with Google’s own price.
  • Free shows how many products are affected; Monitoring and Recovery list each one.
  • With Recovery, the deep check looks for causes a quick look misses: template text left on a page, social links that go to the theme maker, trust claims with nothing to back them up, urgency pop-ups and broken menu links.

You can also connect your Google Merchant Center account, read-only, to see Google’s own issues next to the store check.

8 of the 11 checks on WordPress

Your pages, policies and contact details are all read from the site itself. Product data and product images need a product list, which a WordPress site doesn’t publish, so they come back Not checked. Business identity runs once you connect your Merchant Center account, which is where the business details Google compares with your site come from.

  • RefundIn the free check
  • ShippingIn the free check
  • Privacy and termsIn the free check
  • Contact detailsIn the free check
  • Product dataNot checked here: it needs a product list.
  • Hidden fees
  • Google product listingsIn the free check
  • Business identityNot checked here: it needs your Merchant Center account connected.
  • Storefront accessIn the free check
  • Payment displayIn the free check
  • Product imagesNot checked here: it needs a product list.

Merchant Center

How a WordPress store gets its products to Google

Merchant Center is built around product data, and a WordPress site with no shop plugin has none to send. So a warning on a site like yours is usually about the site rather than the products: a policy page Google couldn’t find, contact details it couldn’t see, or a business name that doesn’t match the one on the account.

  1. 1

    If you sell through WooCommerce, the WooCommerce page covers Google’s own extension for it.

  2. 2

    If your products live somewhere else — a marketplace listing, a booking system, a printed catalogue — Merchant Center won’t read them from WordPress. They have to reach Google as a file it fetches, or through its API.

  3. 3

    Either way, the site Merchant Center has verified and the site your pages are served from have to be the same one.

Fixing it here

What usually goes wrong on WordPress

  • Your privacy policy is a setting as well as a page

    WordPress records which page it is in Settings → Privacy. Google reads the page a shopper can open, so check that the page named there is published rather than a draft, and that it says what your site actually does.

  • A page nothing links to is a page Google may never reach

    Add each policy to your footer menu in Appearance → Menus, or to the footer template in Appearance → Editor on block themes. This is the commonest reason a site with every policy written still reads as missing one.

    How to fix a missing refund policy

  • Contact details belong where every page shows them

    Appearance → Widgets, or Appearance → Editor on block themes. One method is enough — an email address or a phone number a shopper can really use — but it has to be visible without signing in.

    How to fix missing contact information

  • The business details Google compares

    Your site name and address in Settings → General, and whatever your contact page states, are what Google reads against your Merchant Center account. A trading name on one and a registered company name on the other is enough to flag.

    How to fix mismatched business information

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