We’re working on a website that we’re slowly rolling out to customers (free and paid). We’re not “testing” or “staging” because we’re doing a slow rollout and we want our customers to be able to have anyone at their companies create accounts with us (so we can’t maintain a list of “testing” emails). Our root domain “www.example.com” is a basic page with a waitlist because we’re not yet ready to announce our company widely. Our homepage that we’ve submitted to the Google Verification Process (“www.example.com/search”) has a lot more content, links to our privacy policy and terms of service, and has a link to a login form. Anyone on the internet can navigate to both pages. When we do a press announcement, we plan to redirect our current homepage (“www.example.com/search”) to our root domain (“www.example.com”). We just got the following message from Google:
Your app homepage must meet the following requirements:
- Accurate, inclusive, and easily accessible to all users.
- Clearly explain what your app will do with user data.
- Represents your brand and clearly describes the app you are submitting.
- What is the definition of “homepage”?
- Does Google allow you to enter any homepage link you want, or are they only looking at your root domain?
- If we can provide any homepage URL, can we just make our Privacy Policy the “homepage” since it clearly explains what our app will do with user data? I rarely see homepages that persistently list what they do with user data.
- Can we do this with a 1-time pop-up / cookie acknowledgement?
Any other advice? We’re so confused and trying to do the right thing.