Start your migration

This page provides guidance on planning your API migration and outlines the required steps.

Plan your migration

  1. Map your Content API for Shopping methods to Merchant API methods.

    Understand the new methods and resources required for Merchant API.

  2. Understand the most significant changes that apply to your migration.

    Review the following resources to help with your migration:

    • Migrate from Content API overview: This details the major changes to be aware of in Merchant API
    • Sub-API specific migration guides: Review the specific sub-API migration guides you need as they provide critical information such as new field mappings. For an example, see Migrate products management.
    • Merchant API reference provides the details of Merchant API resources and methods.
    • The Quickstart guide shows how to quickly start using Merchant API to create an account and upload a sample product.
    • Feature-specific guides: For new feature implementation or for more clarification, you can review the feature guides provided in the navigation.
  3. Identify the sub-APIs that you plan to migrate and want to implement.

    Determine two things:

    • The Merchant API features you need to migrate
    • The new features you want to implement

    Once you've done this, you can determine the amount of effort and a priority list of sub-APIs to work on.

    If you cannot migrate your entire Content API implementation initially, prioritize the following sub-APIs based on importance and complexity.

Migration steps

  1. Register as a developer To use the Merchant API, you must create a link between your Google Cloud project and your primary Merchant Center account. This one-time registration is required for every Google Cloud project you use with Merchant API. You can follow the whole process in the Overview page.

  2. Test different methods to help you ramp up. We recommend using Google APIs Explorer to perform basic tests.

    The format of request URLs for Merchant API is

    https://merchantapi.googleapis.com/{SUB_API}/{VERSION}/{RESOURCE_NAME}:{METHOD}
    
  3. Leverage our code samples and client libraries.

    To help reduce the implementation time and benefit from gRPC, use the client libraries and code samples.

    The guides include code sample snippets. For example, see Add a product.

  4. Test simple user journeys.

    Conduct user journey testing on all the sub-APIs and functionality you plan to migrate with the following goals:

    • Your migrated resources and calls have correct response results.
    • The error ratio remains low.

Plan your roll-out

We recommend the following approach:

  • Implement one sub-API or method at a time.
  • Implement to only a small segment of the business at a time.
  • Monitor for issues at all times.

Implement your migration

  1. Work on coding using the new resources and endpoints.

    After initial testing and development of a release plan, integrate Merchant API into your workflows.

  2. Monitor.

    Prepare to address potential issues.