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1.3 Account Linking
Introduction and Business Impact
Linking your merchant's account associates their Merchant Center Account to your MCA. This provides a better support services to your merchants and you, as our partner:
Transparency with what accounts you own
Provide better assistance to your merchants reaching out to our merchant support
Enable partner specific features
Tech Guidance
This step needs to be performed for all new merchant centers accounts created and existing merchant center accounts connected.
The Content API's accounts.link method lets a partner programmatically activate a relationship between their own Merchant Center account and those of other merchants. Please go to Account linking overview for more information. For each of your merchants, use the following Link Types and services:
LinkTypes to use For storebuilders:eCommercePlatform
For services used for Free Listings or Ads:shoppingAdsProductManagement
Existing Merchant Center account linking
There is some additional guidance to know about with linking your existing Merchant Center accounts:
Use the content API endpoint account.authinfo with the OAuth credentials of the Google Account of the merchant to display the MC account associated to the Merchant's Google Account.
Make sure to store the MC account details
The merchant MC account is not a sub-account of your MCA. You should use account.link to link your MCA to the merchant's existing accounts. You manage the merchant MC account only by using the content API using OAuth.
Unlinking a Sub-Account
There are situations where you want to remove your merchants from your MCA (for example, switching storebuilders) or if your merchant wants to be removed. We recommend to remove the linking established for these merchants. For merchants under your MCA, go to New Merchant Center Connection - Account Creation to learn more about how to remove your merchants from your MCA .
[null,null,["Last updated 2024-09-03 UTC."],[[["\u003cp\u003eLinking your Merchant Center Account (MCA) with your merchants' accounts enhances support services and transparency.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eAccount linking is essential for both new and existing merchant accounts and requires using the Content API's \u003ccode\u003eaccounts.link\u003c/code\u003e method with specific Link Types.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExisting Merchant Center account linking involves utilizing the \u003ccode\u003eaccount.authinfo\u003c/code\u003e endpoint and linking your MCA to the merchant's existing accounts using \u003ccode\u003eaccount.link\u003c/code\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eUnlinking a sub-account can be done when necessary, such as when a merchant switches storebuilders or requests removal, and involves specific procedures detailed in another section.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],[],null,["1.3 Account Linking\n-------------------\n\n### Introduction and Business Impact\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nLinking your merchant's account associates their Merchant Center Account to your MCA. This provides a better support services to your merchants and you, as our partner:\n\n- Transparency with what accounts you own\n\n- Provide better assistance to your merchants reaching out to our merchant support\n\n- Enable partner specific features\n\n| **Note:** Linking doesn't give the Storebuilder access to your merchant's Merchant Center account.\n\n### Tech Guidance\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\n**This step needs to be performed for all new merchant centers accounts created and existing merchant center accounts connected.**\n| **Note:** First, reach out to your Google POC to allowlist your MCA ID to perform the below technical implementations.\n\nThe Content API's [`accounts.link`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/link) method lets a partner programmatically activate a relationship between their own Merchant Center account and those of other merchants. Please go to [Account linking overview](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/guides/flagging/overview) for more information. For each of your merchants, use the following Link Types and services:\n\n- **LinkTypes to use For storebuilders:** `eCommercePlatform`\n\n- **For services used for Free Listings or Ads:** `shoppingAdsProductManagement`\n\n| **Note:** Flagging accounts via [`accounts.link`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/link) does not automatically make a merchant's account part of a partner's [multi-client account](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/188487).\n\n#### Existing Merchant Center account linking\n\nThere is some additional guidance to know about with linking your existing Merchant Center accounts:\n\n- Use the content API endpoint [`account.authinfo`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/authinfo) with the OAuth credentials of the Google Account of the merchant to display the MC account associated to the Merchant's Google Account.\n\n- Make sure to store the MC account details\n\n- The merchant MC account is not a sub-account of your MCA. You should use [`account.link`](https://developers.google.com/shopping-content/reference/rest/v2.1/accounts/link) to link your MCA to the merchant's existing accounts. You manage the merchant MC account only by using the content API using OAuth.\n\n#### Unlinking a Sub-Account\n\nThere are situations where you want to remove your merchants from your MCA (for example, switching storebuilders) or if your merchant wants to be removed. We recommend to remove the linking established for these merchants. For merchants under your MCA, go to [*New Merchant Center Connection - Account Creation*](/merchant/storebuilder/online/sections/1_2A_1_account_creation) to learn more about how to remove your merchants from your MCA ."]]
