We remove content or restrict features when we find violations of our Community Guidelines, which apply to everyone with a Search profile, including their posts and activity. However, sometimes, we make mistakes. If your content was removed or restricted, and you don’t think you’ve gone against the guidelines, you can submit an appeal to have one of our specialists check your content or Google Account. If they determine that you didn’t violate the Community Guidelines, your content or access can be restored, and any associated violations removed.
Important: These appeals processes are for violations of the Google Search Community Guidelines. At this time, appeals are only available for certain types of policy violations and Google Accounts. References to the appeals process in notifications from Google aren’t a confirmation of eligibility.
Before you submit an appeal, it’s important to read through the Community Guidelines, which outline examples of content and activity that can cause content to be removed or access restricted.
Submit an appeal
We’ll notify you about violations of the Community Guidelines in the Violations section of your Google Search profile. The section is only accessible through in-product messaging if we find content or Google Account activity that goes against the guidelines. Some appeals can be submitted through the Google app, while others must be appealed through email, like copyright violations or Legal issues. You’ll find instructions on how to appeal in the violation notice, only if the violation or your Google Account is eligible for appeal. Community Guidelines violations can only be appealed once.
Check the appeal status
You can check the status of appeals that were submitted in the Google app when you open the corresponding violation notice in the Violations section of your Google Search profile. Appeals that are submitted through email continues to use email to communicate any status updates. Most appeal requests take two business days to review, or longer. Appeals generally have two statuses:
- Approved: A specialist checks at your content or Google Account and confirms that there wasn’t a violation of the Community Guidelines. Content or feature access gets restored and violation notice is removed from the Violations list.
- Wasn’t approved: A specialist checks at your content or Google Account and confirms that there’s a violation of the Community Guidelines. Content may remain on your Google Search profile, marked as “Removed” until you delete it. In some cases, content is permanently deleted depending on the severity of the violation or legal requirements.
Feature restrictions & Google Account appeals
Multiple or severe violations can result in restrictions that limit your access to features like posting content and editing your Google Search profile. In your Google Account settings, you can find the status of your Google Account whether your feature access is restricted due to a policy violation. Feature access may be restricted if you violate the Community Guidelines. When a Google Account’s feature access is restricted, other content posted by the Google Account may also be removed.
For certain violations, you can appeal the feature access through your Google Account settings page. If your content is removed because of a feature access restriction, the content violations are also reviewed as part of your appeal. Feature access restrictions can only be appealed once. Deleting content doesn’t resolve feature restrictions.
Appeal decisions
Once we review your Google Account activity, we’ll inform you if your appeal is:
Approved appeal: If we confirm that the Google Account activity followed our policies, we restore the Google Account’s feature access.
Denied appeal: If we confirm that the Google Account violated our policies, Google Account’s feature access and content may remain restricted.
Canceled appeal: Your appeals may be canceled if Google Account becomes ineligible for an appeal.