If you sell through TikTok Shop or Etsy and also run your own website with a Google Merchant Center account, you are facing a risk that pure direct-to-consumer stores do not: platform-level suspension triggers.
Both TikTok Shop and Etsy create their own product pages with their own URLs, policies, and pricing. When you submit those products to Google Merchant Center, the feed has to match what Google sees on your landing pages. The problem is that the "landing page" for a marketplace seller is often the marketplace URL, not your own domain, and Google's policies have some specific requirements for that scenario.
Why TikTok Shop Sellers Get Suspended
The most common trigger is price mismatch. TikTok Shop routinely runs its own promotions (TikTok Coins discounts, creator coupon codes, platform-wide sale events) that drop the price customers pay below what your product feed shows. When Google crawls the product and finds a different price than the feed says, it flags misrepresentation.
A second common cause is landing page policy requirements. Even if you are only linking to your TikTok Shop product page, Google still requires a visible return policy, a privacy policy, and full contact information accessible from that landing page. TikTok's native pages do not always make those visible in a way that satisfies Google's crawler.
For the full list of TikTok-specific triggers and how to fix each one, this guide on Google Merchant Center TikTok Shop suspension covers all six causes with step-by-step fixes.
Why Etsy Sellers Get Suspended
Etsy suspension triggers are different. The biggest issue for handmade sellers is missing GTINs. If your products are genuinely handmade and do not have a barcode, you should set identifier_exists: FALSE in your feed. If you leave the GTIN field blank without that flag, Google may disapprove the products or flag the account.
A second issue specific to Etsy is policy page accessibility. Etsy sellers have shop policies on their Etsy profile, but Google requires those policies (return policy, contact info, privacy policy) to be accessible from the product landing page without requiring a login. If your Etsy shop is behind a login wall, or your policies are only visible after clicking through multiple pages, Google may not find them.
The full breakdown of Etsy-specific GMC suspension causes is in this guide: Google Merchant Center Etsy seller suspended.
The Common Thread
Both platforms share one root cause: your feed is submitted from your own account, but the landing page is on a domain you do not control. Google holds you responsible for what it finds on those pages, even though you cannot freely edit them.
The practical fix for both is to use your own domain as the landing page whenever possible, add a thin wrapper page on your site that redirects (or embeds) the product and includes the required policy links, and audit your feed prices against the actual prices Google will find when it crawls.
If your Merchant Center account is already suspended and you are not sure which of these triggered it, a free audit at gmcsuspension.com can identify the specific misrepresentation or policy flag before you submit a reinstatement request.
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