Glossary

Account access

Settings that control who can access and manage your Merchant Center account.

You can grant different levels of access to users on your Merchant Center account and determine what actions they can take.

Learn more about access levels.

Account issues

Problems with your Merchant Center account that can affect all of your products.

Learn more about issues in Merchant Center.

Advanced account setups

Specialist account types for businesses with unique needs, such as marketplaces, partners or multi-brand merchants.

Learn more about how to request an advanced account setup.

Attribute rules

Rules that modify your product data to meet Google's requirements or to improve its quality.

Learn more about how to set up your attribute rules.

Automatic item updates (AIU)

A feature that automatically updates your product data in Merchant Center to match changes on your website, like price and availability.

Learn more about how to allow Merchant Center to update product information automatically.

Brand

The name of the product's manufacturer.

Claiming

Associating your verified website with your Merchant Center account, ensuring that only you can manage product information for that website.

Comparison Shopping Services (CSS)

Websites that collect product offers from different merchants and allow users to compare prices and features.

Learn more about advertising with Comparison Shopping Services.

Data source (previously known as 'Feeds')

How you add product information to Merchant Center

Methods include:

• Adding products automatically from your online shop
• Connecting your e-commerce platform to Google
• Adding products using a .txt, .xml or .tsv file
• Using a Google Sheets template
• Adding products one by one in Merchant Center
• Using the Content API for Shopping

Email preferences

Settings that control which types of email notifications you receive from Merchant Center

Free listings

A way to showcase your products on Google for free.

Learn more about:

• Marketing methods
• Where your products appear across Google

Google Ads

A platform where you create and manage your advertising campaigns

Google Business Profile

A free profile that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps

Linked accounts

Connections between your Business Manager profile or Merchant Center account and other Google accounts, like Google Ads and Google Business Profile

Learn more about:

• Linking apps and services in Business Manager
• Apps and services page and linking Google services

Marketing method (previously known as 'Destinations')

Gives merchants control over how their products are used, such as whether they are shown to customers or shared with other Google platforms

Microdata

Code added to your website that helps Google understand your product information more accurately

Multi-client accounts (MCA)

Accounts designed for businesses that manage multiple Merchant Center accounts, like marketplaces or agencies.

Needs attention tab 

Formerly known as the Diagnostics tab. This is a section in Merchant Center that highlights products with issues that need to be addressed. The history graph is linked from this tab.

Performance reports

Data about how your products are performing on Google, including impressions, clicks and sales

Pricing

A tab in Merchant Center Analytics that shows you cards that let you compare the prices of your products with the prices that customers see on Google. This includes the prices of your products and the prices of products from other sellers.

Product data

The information that you provide about the products that you sell, like title, description, price and availability.

Learn more about how to create a product data source.

Product data specification

A set of guidelines and format requirements for uploading your product data to Merchant Center.

Product disapprovals

Products that don't meet Google's requirements and can't be shown on Google

Promotions

Special offers or discounts that you can create to attract customers. Different promotion types allowed in Merchant Center include £ or % off, buy one get one free, free item, free delivery discounts and more.

Quota limits

Limits on the amount of data that you can upload to Merchant Center, such as the number of items, data sources, sub-accounts, API requests, sellers in your marketplace or promotions.

Learn more about:

• How to fix: Not submitted due to product limit
• Quota limits on promotions

You can also request an additional quota of items, data sources or sub-accounts.

Return policy

Your shop's policies for accepting returns and issuing refunds

Sales tax settings

Information about how you calculate and apply sales tax to your products

Scheduled fetches

A feature that automatically retrieves your product data from your server at regular intervals, keeping it up to date in Merchant Center

Delivery settings

Information about how you deliver your products, including costs, carriers and delivery times

Shopping ads

One type of ad that can be created from your product data. Shopping ads show users a photo of your product, plus a title, price, shop name and more. 

Shopping campaigns

Advertising campaigns created in Google Ads to promote your products

Sub-accounts

Individual Merchant Center accounts managed under an advanced account structure called a multi-client account (MCA). Sub-accounts can, for example, have distinct names and unique website URLs and data sources.

Supplemental data source

Additional data sources that you can use to enhance or override information in your primary data source. 

Unique product identifier (UPI)

A unique code assigned to each product, like the Manufacturer Part Number (MPN)[mpn] or Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)[gtin]

Learn more about:

• Unique product identifiers
• MPN [mpn]
• GTIN [gtin]

Variants

Different versions of the same product that vary in attributes like size, colour or material

Website claiming

The process of proving you own your shop's website

Learn more about​​​ Understanding online shop URL verification. 

For detailed troubleshooting instructions, review the troubleshoot online shop URL verification issues article.