Solving annoying Google Shopping problems like Automatic Item Disapprovals

One of the most annoying errors you can get on Google Shopping are the notorious Automatic Item Disapprovals due to a policy violation.

These are usually because of the attributes in your feed, but are very difficult to diagnose.

When you look at the Google Support page, you get the same exact vague reasons why your products get disapproved:

What’s the problem?
Some of your items are disapproved due to a policy violation we detected automatically. When an item is disapproved, it won’t be eligible to serve on Google Shopping.

Our goal is to provide the best user experience on Google Shopping. In order to ensure that the product listings we show to online shoppers are safe, secure, and comply with legal requirements, we maintain comprehensive enforcement of the Google Shopping policies for all merchants. We use automated systems to identify items that may violate our policies. These checks are applied to all items submitted to Google Shopping from all merchants.

Why should you fix this?
You are responsible for the product data that you submit to Google Shopping, including determining if your products comply with our policies. We use automated systems to identify violations and disapprove items, but we might not be able to find all items in violation automatically. You must remove all items from your product data that violate Google Shopping policies. The items we disapprove automatically might only be a subset of all violating items. Any remaining non-compliant items put your account at risk of preemptive item disapprovals or account suspension.

How can you fix this?
The automatically disapproved items can help you to identify patterns (e.g. product categories, brands, keywords) that you can use to remove all violating items from your product data you submit to Google Shopping.

In some instances, you’ll see the option in your Merchant Center account to request a manual review of an item that has been disapproved automatically for policy violations. You can use this in cases where you believe items are incorrectly disapproved. Please note that this manual review is only available for select policy violations and is not available for items that have been disapproved preemptively. Learn more about how to request a manual review.

Fortunately, Feedonomics makes it easy to fix Automatic item disapprovals due to policy violation. Otherwise you have to put up with what could be a growing and large percentage of disapprovals, and bring down the ad quality of your entire Google Shopping account.