Sign up as a Comparison Shopping Service

Comparison Shopping Services (CSSs) can place Shopping ads and free product listings on Google on behalf of merchants in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Minimum requirements

These are the requirements you'll need to meet as a CSS to show ads for products of merchants you represent.

You must operate a Comparison Shopping Service website meeting the following requirements:
- The site shows all offers you submit to Google and allows users to search for and compare different products and different offers for the same product from different merchants.
- The site shows offers from 50 distinct merchant domains for every country they target with Shopping ads. These must be merchants that ship products to the respective country, meaning consumers in the country can buy from them.
- The site shows product offers that lead users to a page where they can buy the listed product.
- The site offers a search box for queries and provides search functionality based primarily on a dynamic and automated process and that is not substantially based on search technology licensed or syndicated from Google.
- The CSS website offers sorting or filtering options of product search results by price and at least one other dimension relevant for consumers (for example, brand, merchant, shipping time).
- The site is accessible to everyone without sign-up.
Your business must have a registration in at least one country where the CSS program is available and show a business address corresponding to your registration on your website.
Ads and free listings must comply with all Shopping ads policies and product data specifications.
Offer links promoted in Shopping ads (unless expressly specified differently for a particular ad format) need to lead users directly to a page that allows them to buy the advertised product. Learn more about landing page requirements
Submit product data for each merchant you represent in a separate sub-account of a multi-client account (one sub-account for each distinct merchant domain). Alternatively, use a separate stand-alone account for each merchant and ask your support team at Google to associate it with your CSS.
If you’d like to represent a marketplace, request a separate marketplace multi-client account for offers of that marketplace. Submit product data for each individual seller on the marketplace in a separate sub-account of that marketplace multi-client account. If you allow transactions on your own domain, request a separate marketplace multi-client account for those offers and submit product data for each merchant in a separate sub-account of that marketplace multi-client account.
If your business is primarily a marketplace allowing transactions on your own domain, you cannot participate as a CSS, but you may participate as a marketplace through one or several CSSs of your choosing.
You must create a new Google Ads account and link it exclusively to your CSS multi-client account(s) and their sub-accounts, if applicable.
You warrant that you have the necessary rights to permit Google to access, index, cache or crawl the landing-page URL(s) of the seller’s site and the content available through such URL(s), and to display the information associated with the product ads you submit. Your service to third parties must clearly and conspicuously disclose to such third parties that this content of theirs will be provided to Google and may be made available to the general public

If you don't follow these requirements, we'll disapprove your products or suspend your account(s) and let you know in the Diagnostics page of your Merchant Center account(s).

Best practices

These are recommendations for your setup and features of your CSS website that we think will help you provide users with a great experience to compete against other CSSs.

Filtering and sorting

Allow users to filter and sort product offers on your website by relevant criteria (for example, by price, merchant, or brand). You may want to offer different options for filtering and sorting depending on the type of product (for example, color and style for apparel, or technical specifications for electronics).

Comparison of offers for the same product

If multiple merchants sell the same product through your website, allow users to access an overview that compares offers for the same product from different merchants. You may want to provide details for each offer, such as price, shipping cost, delivery time, payment methods, ratings and reviews, etc. This allows users to select a merchant based on what’s important to them.

Language and currency

Help your users find offers in the language and currency of their country. When a user is taken from a Shopping ad to your CSS website, the language and currency of the offers shown on your site should correspond with the language and currency of the offer seen in the ad.

Presence in multiple countries

If your CSS is active in several countries, we recommend you ensure that users find offers for the correct country and language on your website when they click on a “By CSS” link in a Shopping ad or listing (meaning the country and language of the offers on your website correspond to those of the ad shown).

If you use the same CSS domain for multiple countries, you can adapt the offers shown based on what you know about the users and their locations. Alternatively, you can use a separate CSS website for each country.

There are a few ways you can do this:

Use different brands for each country.
Use different country domains for the same brand (for example, somecss.fr and somecss.de).
Use a different subdomain for each country (for example, fr.somecss.com and de.somecss.com).

Each website will have its own CSS multi-client account.

You can also distinguish different language versions of your website for countries where multiple languages are spoken (for example, fr.somecss.be).

How to sign up

If you run a CSS business that complies with the requirements above and you’d like to participate in Shopping ads on behalf of merchants you represent, do the following:

Create a new Merchant Center account.
Click on the tools icon , then select Business information under “Tools”.
Add the following information:
1. Your business display name (as you’d like it to be shown to users, max. 10-15 characters)
2. Your business address
3. Your customer service contact information (URL, email, and phone number)
Next, click on the Website tab and add your website, including the schema (http:// or https://).Then, verify your website URL in one of the following two ways:
- If you do not currently have another account advertising with Shopping ads for the given domain, verify and claim the website in Merchant Center.
- If you are currently advertising with Shopping ads for the given domain, claiming the site may interfere with ads or listings served from other Merchant Center accounts you already have. In this case, use Google Search Console to verify your domain, but do not claim it. Log in with a user who has access to the Merchant Center account created, navigate to Search Console, and add the property.
Stop at this point, and sign up here to transform your account into a CSS multi-client account. Do not upload any offers to this initial account.

Offers that you upload are by default only displayed on the Google general search results page; they are not shown on the Google Shopping site at google.com/shopping – unless you opt in to showing them there as well.

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