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Existing Merchant Center Account - Website Claiming Check
Introduction/Business Impact
If your merchant has an active Merchant Center account, there is a strong chance they have their website claimed already. If not, they will need to be able to verify and claim their website through your integration.
UX Guidance
Existing Merchant Accounts - Website Claiming
Tech Guidance
Theaccount statuseswebsiteClaimed property will equal TRUE if the website is claimed or the account is exempted from the claim requirement.
Your platform should check the websiteClaimed property and theaccountswebsiteUrl property, and take the following steps:
websiteClaimed
websiteURL matches merchant's website on your platform
Your Next Step
FALSE
N/A
Verify and claim the website.
TRUE
TRUE
Proceed to the next step in on-boarding.
TRUE
FALSE
Prompt the user to create a new MC account or choose a different existing MC account that matches the website on your platform.
It can happen that a website is claimed by an unknown MC account which prevents you from claiming the website. In this case we recommend:
For existing Merchant Center accounts, If the website is already claimed by another MC account, ask the merchant to change the MC account to use the one with the claimed website.
Ask your mechant to manually overwrite the claim in Merchant Center
If the above is not possible, reach out to your Google POC
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2024-09-03 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eFor merchants with existing Google Merchant Center accounts, verify if their website is already claimed using the \u003ccode\u003ewebsiteClaimed\u003c/code\u003e property.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eIf the \u003ccode\u003ewebsiteClaimed\u003c/code\u003e property is \u003ccode\u003eFALSE\u003c/code\u003e, or the website URL doesn't match the merchant's website on your platform, initiate the website claim process.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eIf a website is claimed by an unknown Merchant Center account, advise the merchant to either use the claimed account or manually overwrite the claim.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eMerchants with multiple accounts under the same top-level domain can utilize the \u003ccode\u003eaccounts.custombatch\u003c/code\u003e method for efficient account management.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebsite claims can be hierarchical; a claim at a higher level (e.g., example.com) prevents claims at lower levels (e.g., merchant.example.com).\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["The key action is determining if a merchant's website is already claimed in an existing Merchant Center account. The `websiteClaimed` property indicates the claim status. If `FALSE`, the website must be verified and claimed. If `TRUE` and the website matches, proceed; otherwise, prompt for a different account. If claimed by another account, suggest changing accounts or manually overwriting the claim. Multiple account management using `accounts.custombatch` is also recommended, while warnings are provided about higher-level claims. The API endpoint to claim a website is `accounts.claimwebsite`.\n"],null,["Existing Merchant Center Account - Website Claiming Check\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\n### Introduction/Business Impact\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nIf your merchant has an active Merchant Center account, there is a strong chance they have their website claimed already. If not, they will need to be able to verify and claim their website through your integration.\n\n### UX Guidance\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\n#### Existing Merchant Accounts - Website Claiming\n\n### Tech Guidance\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nThe [account statuses](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/claimwebsite) websiteClaimed property will equal TRUE if the website is claimed or the account is exempted from the claim requirement.\n\nYour platform should check the websiteClaimed property and the [`accounts`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts) websiteUrl property, and take the following steps:\n\n| **websiteClaimed** | **websiteURL matches merchant's website on your platform** | **Your Next Step** |\n|--------------------|------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|\n| FALSE | N/A | Verify and claim the website. |\n| TRUE | TRUE | Proceed to the next step in on-boarding. |\n| TRUE | FALSE | Prompt the user to create a new MC account or choose a different existing MC account that matches the website on your platform. |\n\nIf your merchant needs to verify and claim their website, learn more about how to do this in the [*New Merchant Center Account Creation - Phone verification*](/merchant/storebuilder/online/sections/1_2A_4_phone_verification).\n| **Note:** Existing Merchant Center accounts configured to work with third-party CSSs are exempted from the website claim requirements. See the [CSS compliance section](/merchant/storebuilder/online/sections/1_2A_5_css_compliance) for more information or reach out to your Google POC\n\n#### Website is already claimed by another GMC account\n\nIt can happen that a website is claimed by an unknown MC account which prevents you from claiming the website. In this case we recommend:\n\n- For existing Merchant Center accounts, If the website is already claimed by another MC account, ask the merchant to change the MC account to use the one with the claimed website.\n\n- Ask your mechant to manually overwrite the claim in Merchant Center\n\n- If the above is not possible, reach out to your Google POC\n\n| **Tip:** If your Merchant Center accounts use the same top domain and their landing pages are subdomains of the top domain, you can use [`accounts.custombatch`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/custombatch#authorization-scopes) to retrieve, claim, insert, update, and delete multiple accounts in a single request.\n| **Warning:** The claiming Merchant Center account may have a claim at a higher level, which covers uses at all lower levels, and so lower levels cannot be separately claimed. For example, a Merchant Center claiming http://example.com means that another Merchant Center cannot claim http://merchant.example.com, and a claim of http://marketplace.example.com means that http://marketplace.example.com/store cannot be separately claimed.\n\nHTTP request: [`accounts.claimwebsite`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/claimwebsite) \n\n POST https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchantId}/accounts/{accountId}/claimwebsite\n\nResponse: [`AccountsClaimWebsiteResponse`](https://googleapis.dev/java/google-api-services-content/latest/com/google/api/services/content/model/AccountsClaimWebsiteResponse.html)"]]
