How the scan works

What we read

We start at the address you enter, read your robots.txt, then open the pages a reviewer opens: homepage, contact, about, return and refund policy, shipping policy, terms, privacy policy, cart, and up to four product pages found through your menus, collections or sitemap. We also spot-check menu links for errors. The cap is 25 requests per scan, spaced out so a small store doesn't notice us.

Our crawler identifies itself as GreatWorkStoreScanner and follows your robots.txt. If your robots.txt asks it to stay out, we stop and tell you. One exception: Shopify adds a rule to every store's robots.txt that asks crawlers to skip /policies/. Because a scan is something the store's owner (or their agency) asks for, and those policy pages are exactly what Merchant Center reviews look at, we read Shopify's standard policy pages (refund, shipping, terms, privacy, contact information) anyway. Nothing else in robots.txt is ignored. More about the crawler.

What we check

• Contact information. Shoppers can reach you: a contact page plus at least one direct method (email or phone), with no placeholder details.
• Business address. A real business or returns address is shown somewhere a shopper can find it (contact page, footer or policies).
• Return and refund policy. A return/refund policy page exists, is linked, and states the return window, item condition, how refunds are paid and how to start a return.
• Shipping policy. A shipping/delivery page exists and states costs and delivery times.
• Terms of service. A terms of service page exists and is linked.
• Privacy policy. A privacy policy page exists and is linked.
• About the business. An About page tells shoppers who runs the store.
• Consistent business identity. The business name is the same across your site name, structured data and footer, and your site says who the business is.
• No placeholder or template text. No lorem ipsum, default theme copy, sample products, "your store name" fields or coming-soon notices anywhere we looked.
• Claims and pressure tactics. No unverifiable "as seen on" or medical claims, guaranteed results, or fake-urgency messages.
• Secure connection (HTTPS). Your homepage, product pages and checkout load over HTTPS, plain http redirects to https, and forms don't post to insecure addresses.
• Pages load for visitors. Your homepage and product pages answer with a working page (no errors, no password page, no login wall).
• Broken links in your menus. Links in your header and footer lead to real pages, not 404 errors.
• Google's crawlers are allowed. Your robots.txt doesn't block Googlebot, Storebot-Google or AdsBot-Google from your homepage or product pages.
• Mobile-friendly pages. Pages declare a mobile viewport so they render properly on phones, where most shopping clicks happen.
• Customers can buy. Product pages have a working add-to-cart or buy button and the cart page loads securely.
• Payment methods shown. Accepted payment methods are visible before checkout.
• Product structured data. Each product page has valid Product markup (JSON-LD or microdata) with a name, image and offer.
• Price matches the page. The price in your structured data and social meta tags appears on the page itself.
• Currency matches. priceCurrency is set, and the currency shown on the page matches it.
• Availability matches the page. Offer availability is set with a valid schema.org value and agrees with what the page shows (no "in stock" markup on a sold-out page).
• Brand and product identifiers. Product markup includes a brand, and any GTIN (UPC/EAN/ISBN) has a valid check digit.

How the score works

Each check is weighted by how directly Google's policy pages tie it to an account-level issue: contact details, return policy, placeholder text and landing pages weigh the most. A passing check earns its full weight, a check that needs work earns part of it, and a problem earns none. Checks we couldn't run (for example price checks on a store with no product pages we could find) don't count either way.

What we can't see

We read your public website only. We can't see your Merchant Center account, your product feed, your shipping and return settings inside Merchant Center, or Google's internal notes. Some suspensions (for example dangerous products or counterfeit goods) are about what you sell rather than how your site looks; a website scan can't settle those. And nobody outside Google can promise an account will be approved or reinstated.

Sources

Our issue guides quote and link Google's Merchant Center help pages, last checked on 2026-10-08. When Google changes a page, we update the guide.