Your Shopify shipping or refund policy page may be empty — how to check

Shopify publishes store policies at fixed addresses — /policies/refund-policy, /policies/shipping-policy, /policies/privacy-policy, /policies/terms-of-service — and links them from checkout (Shopify help). The trap: the page can exist, load with your full theme, and contain no policy text at all. It looks fine at a glance because the header and footer are there. We have seen this on well-known, otherwise healthy stores.

Why Google cares

Google asks merchants to "provide clear and conspicuous refund and return information on your website", accessible "without having to log in, sign up, or enter any personal information", and consistent with what is set in Merchant Center (Google: return policies). Its misrepresentation policy also requires disclosing shipping costs, return shipping fees, fulfilment timelines and refund restrictions (Google: misrepresentation). An empty page states none of that.

How to check

1. Open each policy URL above on your store, logged out, and read the middle of the page — not the header or footer.
2. Or run the free policy check: it reads only Shopify's policy section and reports each page as present, missing, empty or "could not check".

How to fix

In the Shopify admin go to Settings → Policies and write (or generate, then edit) each policy (Shopify help). For the refund policy, Google expects the time frame for returns, the return method and any return fees, and it should cover ordinary change-of-mind returns, not only defects (source). Then make sure Merchant Center's Shipping and returns settings say the same thing.

Check your four Shopify policy pages for free: Run the free policy check

Not affiliated with Google or Shopify.