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Separate website, parent brand’s logo: why Google Ads may see misrepresentation
Gianluca Catinella, Director, Ad Restore LtdPublished on 13 min read
Make it seem like you’re affiliated with another brand, organisation or government entity when you’re not
One of the things Google’s Unacceptable Business Practices policy says you can’t do, quoted word for word from its UK English page on 9 October 2026.
A separate website that carries your parent company’s logo can look, to an automated review, like a site pretending to be that company. Google’s Unacceptable Business Practices policy says you can’t make it seem like you’re affiliated with another brand when you’re not. The fix is often the opposite of what people expect: give the site a brand of its own, and say once, clearly, who runs it.
This guide comes from a case we’re working on: a property development’s own microsite, suspended under that policy. The companies behind it exist and are connected. What the site showed didn’t make that clear. At the time of writing the account hasn’t been reinstated, and the case is still open.
Checked against Google’s help pages on 9 October 2026. Google changes them without notice, so check the linked page before relying on a detail. The case is anonymised: no client, company, development, domain or account is named.
At a glance
A logo is a claim
Another company’s logo on your domain says “this is us”. A reviewer can’t see the agreement behind it.
One site, one brand
Google’s best practice is to use your own name, logo, images and colours.
Name the operator once
Legal name, registration and tax numbers, address, phone and email, in the footer.
A link helps, but isn’t enough
In our experience, the parent linking to the site doesn’t settle it on its own.
Fix, recrawl, then appeal
Change what the pages show first. Appeal once, when Google has had time to see it.
On this page11 sections
Why a separate site with the parent’s logo looks like a copycat
Google treats Unacceptable Business Practices as egregious. Accounts are suspended upon detection and without prior warning, and Google may review information from multiple sources, including your ad, website, accounts and third-party sources.
Much of that checking is automated. Google says it uses a combination of Google’s AI and human evaluation to find accounts that break its policies, and that content is flagged for trained reviewers where a more nuanced determination is required.
Now look at a microsite the way a machine does. It sits on its own domain. Its header carries the logo of a company whose website is somewhere else. Its forms ask for names, phone numbers and email addresses. That’s the shape of Google’s own examples. The policy says you can’t impersonate other brands or businesses to get users to give you money or personal information, and its phishing section describes a fake website that tries to collect people’s credit card details by looking like a well-known money transfer business.
What makes the microsite legitimate, the parent owning or authorising it, isn’t on the page. Google’s Misleading representation policy gives as an example implying affiliation with or endorsement by another organisation, brand or private citizen without their knowledge or consent. Consent is the difference. In our reading, a crawler can’t see a consent that lives in a contract.
The case: a development’s microsite under its parent’s logo
The site was a property development’s own microsite. This is what an automated review would have found on it:
- Someone else’s logo. It sat on a separate domain but carried the parent company’s logo in its header.
- Too many companies. It named several companies, a developer, a project manager and a sales agent, and their roles didn’t match from one section to the next.
- A crowded notice. A notice at the top of the pages named three companies at once.
- A domain held by someone else. The domain had at first been registered to the ad agency.
- Other sellers, other brands. Several estate agencies sold the same development under their own brands.
One detail stood out. The parent’s other developments were advertised under their own brands, not the parent’s, and those accounts kept running. We can’t see inside Google’s review, so we can’t say that was the reason. But it was the most visible difference.
In our reading, the microsite looked like a copycat or affiliate site using an established company’s brand to collect people’s details. It wasn’t one. The parent’s own website links to it, and that helps. But in our experience it isn’t enough on its own: the microsite itself has to make sense to a reviewer, or a system, that only reads its pages.
What Google’s policies say
Both policies that matter here sit under Google’s Misrepresentation policy, which doesn’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services or businesses.
- Unacceptable Business Practices covers scamming people by hiding or misrepresenting info about your business, products or services. The first thing it says you can’t do is the line at the top of this page. One of its examples is written for property: tricking people into believing that you’re the official website for a new housing development to earn commission. Google treats it as egregious, so suspension comes without warning.
- Misleading representation covers obscuring or omitting material information about your identity, affiliations or qualifications. Google says violations of it won’t lead to immediate account suspension without prior warning: a warning comes at least seven days before any suspension.
Your suspension email tells you which one you’re dealing with. Google says it will identify all policies the advertiser has been suspended for violating.
Google’s best practices for Unacceptable Business Practices read like a brief for this problem:
- Use your own branding. “Use your own name, logo, images and colours on your website and in your ads.”
- Don’t borrow another brand’s identity. Google says to avoid using another brand’s name, logo, images and colours in ways that can trick people.
- Be clear about your partnerships. If you’re an official or authorised partner, Google says to ask them to mention you on their website, as well as making the relationship clear on your own website and ads.
- Describe your business on your website. Google asks for updated contact information and a clear explanation of what your company does.
Two honest ways to set it up
If a group company runs a separate website, there are two clean set-ups.
- Give the site its own identity. The development’s (or product’s, or venture’s) own name and logo, one operator named in the footer, and the parent named in words, not borrowed as a logo. This is the route the case we’re working on took, and it’s how the parent’s other developments already ran.
- Or make it the parent’s own page. Send the ads to a page on the parent company’s website, where its logo is simply its logo. Our guide to the “official website” rule for developments covers that route.
What we’d avoid is the half-way house: a separate domain, the parent’s logo in the header, and a notice at the top trying to explain who’s who. That was the set-up in the case.
The checklist: give the site its own identity
A footer pattern
“[Site name] is operated by [operator’s full legal name], company number [number], VAT number [number], [registered address]. Phone: [a number someone answers]. Email: [name]@[the site’s own domain].”
“Partners: developer, [legal name]. Sales agent, [legal name]. Project management, [legal name].”
Privacy and contact basics
Forms are where the copycat reading bites hardest. A page that collects names, phone numbers and emails under a brand it doesn’t clearly own is close to what Google’s phishing section describes. So the forms should say plainly who gets the details.
In the UK, the law asks for the same thing. Under Article 13 of the UK GDPR, when you collect someone’s details you must, at the time when personal data are obtained, tell them who you are and how to contact you, what the data is for, and who will receive it.
- A privacy policy that matches the footer. The same operator, named the same way. Say how enquiries are handled: who receives them, which partner companies they’re passed to, and how long they’re kept.
- A consent line under every form. One or two sentences saying who will receive the enquiry and what it’s for, with a link to the privacy policy in the same language as the form.
- Contact details that work. A phone number that someone answers and an email on the site’s own domain, the same in the footer, on the contact page and in the privacy policy.
A line for under each form
“Your enquiry goes to [operator’s legal name], which runs this website, and to [sales agent’s legal name], which handles sales. We use your details to answer your enquiry. See our [privacy policy].”
Our Unacceptable Business Practices website checklist has the full privacy and cookie checks.
What to do before you appeal
Google says accounts are only reinstated in compelling circumstances, so make the changes first, in this order.
Stop appealing until the site is fixed.
If you file too many appeals for the same suspension, Google says “we may not process them”.
Change every page the ads used.
Brand, footer, partner list, privacy policy and form lines, in every language the site has. Start with the pages your ads pointed to.
Check the related accounts.
Before appealing, Google asks you to ensure that all linked (or previously linked) and all related accounts comply with its policies.
Ask Google to recrawl the pages.
In Search Console, use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing of the main pages, and resubmit the sitemap. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. It doesn’t say whether its Ads reviewers look at search results; we do it so that what Google shows for the site matches the site as it is now.
Make sure AdsBot can reach the pages.
Google requires ad destinations to be crawlable by Google AdsBot web crawlers. Check that no firewall, bot protection or robots.txt rule blocks it. Our guide to appeals rejected within hours shows how to look for AdsBot in your server logs.
Then appeal once.
Describe the changes page by page, with the live URLs, and explain how the companies are connected. We leave at least seven days after any earlier appeal.
Can it be fixed?
When the business is what its website says it is, this is a presentation problem, and presentation can be changed. Whether the account comes back is Google’s decision. The case behind this guide hasn’t been reinstated at the time of writing.
Some cases can’t be fixed this way. As our Unacceptable Business Practices service page says, we turn down accounts that are genuinely in violation, and accounts with a fatal flaw that makes them unredeemable: for example, presenting another company’s business as your own, or advertising another company’s products with no agreement to show for it. If the parent never agreed to the site, a new logo won’t change that. More in when a suspension can’t be fixed.
Don’t open a new Google Ads account for the site.
Google says any new accounts that the advertiser tries to create may also be suspended, and its Circumventing Systems policy names creating new accounts to re-enter the system after a suspension as a violation. Read why a new account makes things worse.
The appeal route
- Where. In the suspended account, Google says to select the Contact us link in the notification at the top of your screen.
- What to say. Google’s tips for this policy are to follow its best practices and, if you’re an official partner of another brand, to describe your partnership and share any information that shows how you’re connected. Then say what changed on the site, with links.
- What proof. Google lists contracts, written agreements, a link to a credible news article and public statements from the brand. A link from the parent’s own website belongs here too.
- When. Google gives every advertiser at least six months from the date of account suspension to appeal, so fix the site first.
If your last appeal came back within hours, read what a fast rejection means and how to check whether Google fetched your pages. Before you write the next one, see what the appeal form asks and why appeals get rejected.
Frequently asked questions
Can a separate website use its parent company’s logo?
Nothing in Google’s policy stops a group company running a separate website. What the policy doesn’t allow is making it seem you’re affiliated with another brand when you’re not, and Google’s best practice is to use your own name, logo, images and colours. In our reading, the risk is that an automated review sees another company’s logo on a different domain and can’t see the agreement behind it. Name the parent in words, and let it link to you.
Is it Misleading representation or Unacceptable Business Practices?
Both sit under Google’s Misrepresentation policy. Unacceptable Business Practices is egregious, so accounts are suspended upon detection and without prior warning. Misleading representation, which covers omitting material information about your identity or affiliations, comes with a warning at least seven days before any suspension. Google says the suspension email identifies all the policies involved.
Does a link from our parent company’s website fix it?
It helps. Google’s best practice for official partners is to ask the brand to mention you on its website, and its phishing appeal tips name “a link to the brand’s official website where your business is listed as a partner” as proof. In our experience it isn’t enough on its own: the site itself has to make clear who runs it.
What should the footer say?
Once, at the bottom of every page: the operator’s full legal name, its company and tax registration numbers, its registered address, a phone number someone answers, and an email on the site’s own domain. List the partner companies below it, each with one role.
Should we name every company involved at the top of the page?
In our reading, no. In the case we’re working on, a notice at the top named three companies, and their roles didn’t match from one section to the next. One operator line in the footer, with the partners listed under it, is easier for a reviewer to check.
Do we have to request indexing before we appeal?
Google doesn’t require it, and it doesn’t say whether its Ads reviewers look at search results. We do it so that what Google Search shows for the site matches the fixed pages. Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Can we open a new Google Ads account for the site?
No. Google says any new accounts that the advertiser tries to create may also be suspended. Fix the site and appeal on the account you have.
