“Sold in the last hour” pop-ups and Merchant Center
“Sold 14 in the last hour” and “Someone in Leeds just bought this” are claims about real orders, so every one has to trace back to your order records. Social-proof apps are happy to fill a quiet store with demo buyers, and a brand-new shop with a busy pop-up fools nobody for long. Connect the widget to live orders or switch it off.
Why this matters
Merchant Center's Misrepresentation policy rules out offers that represent you or your products in a way that's “not accurate, realistic, and truthful”. Among the unacceptable business practices it lists “Enticing customers to part with money or information under false or unclear pretenses”. A rush of buyers that never happened, shown to hurry someone into paying, is hard to square with either line.
The widgets cause trouble in a second way. Under “Usefulness”, Google's “Editorial and professional requirements” page gives “Websites with pop-ups or interstitial ads that interfere with the customer’s ability to view the content requested” as an example of content that is unnecessarily difficult or frustrating to navigate. A purchase notification sliding over the price or the buy button every few seconds, on a phone, does just that.
Product Experts on Google's Merchant Center Community tell stores trying to get reinstated to “Remove all pop-ups and overlays” while they recover. That is community advice for accounts under suspension, stricter than the policy, and it spares you an argument about which pop-ups were honest.
The free scan flags “sold in the last hour” counters and recent-purchase notifications on your pages, and visits twice in fresh sessions: an activity pop-up that repeats itself or changes between the two visits is reported as a failure. The scan sees the claim; the order log that proves or disproves it is yours to open. Viewer counters and reviews imported from elsewhere fail in the same way and are fixed the same way. The full list of social-proof checks is on the misrepresentation checker.
Typical evidence
A “just sold” counter needs records behind it
A “just sold” counter describes other customers' activity. If you publish one, reconcile it with your own records and make sure the wording is not misleading. A public scan cannot perform that reconciliation.
The public signals this check looks for:
“156 sold in the last 2 hours!” on a store that took three orders this week
“156 sold in the last 2 hours!” on a store that took three orders this week.
A “sold” counter fixed at the same number for months
A “sold” counter fixed at the same number for months.
A social-proof app still running demo or sample purchases after install
A social-proof app still running demo or sample purchases after install.
“Someone in London just bought this” pop-ups every few seconds on a store with almost no o…
“Someone in London just bought this” pop-ups every few seconds on a store with almost no orders yet.
Notifications naming products that are out of stock, or that nobody has ever ordered
Notifications naming products that are out of stock, or that nobody has ever ordered.
A purchase pop-up that covers the product details or the buy button on a phone
A purchase pop-up that covers the product details or the buy button on a phone.
What it looks like once it is right
The pop-up is gone. The product page says “Over 2,300 orders shipped since 2021”, a figure taken from the order records and updated each quarter.
Common mistakes
Common mistake
Fix checklist
Replace the vague counter with a documented figure
If you use a sales figure, take it from your own records and keep the calculation. That is more useful than a floating “156 sold in 2 hours” counter, which a public scan cannot verify.
Questions merchants ask
Are “recently sold” pop-ups allowed if I advertise on Google Shopping?
Only if they are true. Google's Misrepresentation policy rules out offers that are not accurate, realistic and truthful, so every “just bought” notice has to match a real order within the time it states. Demo data, sample purchases and fixed counters fail that test.
My social-proof app shows sample orders by default. Is that a problem?
Yes. Sample orders are invented purchases shown as real ones. Switch the app to your live order data, check its notifications against your admin for a day, and remove it if you cannot make the two match.
What can I show instead of a sales counter?
A true total from your order records, such as the number of orders shipped since you opened, plus reviews from verified buyers. Both reassure shoppers, and both can be checked against your records if anyone asks.
Remediation
Risk signal
Similar cases
Sources
Community guidance
Written by Product Experts, the users Google recognises for their answers on its Merchant Center Community forum. Often stricter than Google’s help pages, and not Google policy.
Last reviewed 23 Sep 2026.
That is one issue. The library documents 134.
The free scan lists what it finds on your store. The paid report adds the affected pages, captured evidence and step-by-step fixes. Start free, with no account needed.