Discrepancy in Chrome Extension Review Process

[James]

Hi Chrome Web Store Team,

I would like to bring to your attention a discrepancy in the Chrome extension review process.

Some time ago, our extension was taken down with the feedback that we had included a change log in the Overview and used excessive keywords in the description. We respected the feedback and made the necessary corrections as per Chrome Web Store policy.

However, I recently noticed another extension currently live on the Chrome Web Store that appears to violate multiple policies — such as change log, keyword stuffing, misleading naming, and content duplication — yet it has been approved and published.

Here is the link to the concerned extension:
🔗 https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/locator-labs-playwright-s/kfngpaeojalcpfclfklbgnfkkjcpbcjb

I kindly request you to review this extension and the approval process to ensure fairness and consistency across all developers.

Thank you for your time and for maintaining the integrity of the Chrome Web Store ecosystem.

[James]

Is this kind of change log and smileys and all allowed in description?

If so then we will also add it. Can anyone here put some light on this. thanks

[Patrick Kettner]

Hey James,

I don't see anything wrong with the listing. There are no rules against changelogs or emojis in the item description. However, if you include a bunch of information that is not relevant to the extension, that would be an issue.

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[James]

Thanks Patrick for the input.

But are these information relevant and having it multiple times?

[Patrick Kettner]

Saying your own name, and the domain name that contains your name, is not something I would consider repetitive. 

[James]

These are the policy break I found from Google Gemini itself - 

Here is a breakdown of the potential policy areas that could be considered broken :

1. Spam and Abuse - Keyword Spam

The policy prohibits using "irrelevant or excessive keywords" and "unnatural repetition of the same keyword more than 5 times" in an attempt to manipulate ranking.

• Potential Issue: The description heavily repeats keywords related to the supported frameworks and its primary function.

  • "Locator(s)/LocatorLabs" appears many times (e.g., in the title, short description, core features, privacy section, and about section).

  • "Playwright" and "Selenium" appear several times each, which might be considered excessive in the context of the entire description.

  • The extensive list of supported technologies (Playwright, Selenium, CypressJS, WebDriverIO) and locators (getByRole, XPath, CSS, Page Objects, etc.) is necessary for functionality disclosure, but the sheer volume could be flagged as keyword-stuffing if the review is strict.

2. Listing Requirements - Metadata and Formatting

The policy requires product listing information to be "properly formatted" and prohibits "inappropriately formatted" metadata.

• Potential Issue: Excessive Use of Line Separators (Visual Spam)

  • The description uses a very long, repetitive line separator: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━. While the policy doesn't explicitly ban separators, excessive use of special characters or separators for purely aesthetic reasons could be interpreted as a form of "improperly formatted" or "misleading" metadata that harms the user experience, as it significantly stretches the description. It makes the listing appear overly long and promotional.