Australian Google Merchant Center accounts can switch on checkout links, which give a mobile or tablet shopper the option to go from a Shopping ad straight to your cart or checkout with the product already added. Google opened them to Australian merchants from July 2026. The same month, Google’s Search Central documentation added a product category property to merchant listing structured data, along with guidance on marking when a sale price starts and ends.
On a Neto or Maropost store, both come down to template work. The checkout link needs a cart URL template that your developer builds and tests, and the category and sale-date fields go into your product page structured data.
How checkout links work for Australian merchants
Checkout links add a second path from your Shopping ads: next to the usual link to your product page, a shopper on mobile or tablet can go straight to your cart or checkout with the product already in it. Google’s checkout link help page says the product page link stays on every listing, and that the checkout option “won’t always appear”: it depends on the device, and Google’s algorithms decide when to show it. Australia was added in July 2026, alongside Indonesia, France, Mexico, Argentina, Israel and Poland.
The feature currently works on mobile and tablet only, not desktop. It also applies only to products opted into ads that follow Google’s ads listings policies, so a store running free listings alone does not qualify.
Checkout links are a different feature from Google’s UCP-powered checkout (covered in our guide to UCP checkout in Australia), where the shopper pays with Google Pay on Google’s own surfaces such as AI Mode and Gemini.
Set up checkout links account-wide
In Merchant Center, go to Settings, then Business info, then the Checkout card, and enter a URL template using the {id} parameter. Google replaces {id} with each product’s ID from your product data, so one template covers every eligible product.
Set up checkout links per product
Add the checkout_link_template attribute to your product feed instead. Google recommends this option if you have a customised checkout or cart URL and want to opt in only some of your products. Google allows only one opt-in method, account level or product level, so choose one.
Meet Google’s checkout URL requirements
The checkout or cart URL must support HTTP GET requests and require no sign-in to land on. For per-product URLs, Google also asks that the domain matches the one used for your listings. Your site must allow Google Storebot to access it, and Google re-validates the checkout URLs on a recurring basis. Products must also be opted into ads and follow ads listings policies.
On Neto, build and test the checkout link first
The checkout URL has to land the shopper on your cart or checkout with that product already added. On a Neto store, that is a template your developer builds from the store’s cart URL, which Maropost’s developer documentation shows can add a product by SKU.
An account-wide template only works if the cart URL accepts the product ID from your feed, because that is what Google puts in {id}. If your feed IDs and SKUs differ, the per-product attribute lets you give each product its own URL. For an account-wide template, use Merchant Center’s Test URL structure button before you switch it on: it opens the checkout page for a randomly selected product from your data, and Google says a blank page means the URL has an issue. The button is only offered for the account-level setup, so for per-product URLs, open a sample of them on a phone yourself first.
Product category and sale dates in structured data
Google’s merchant listing structured data supports a category property and sets out how to mark when a sale price starts and ends. Google added both to its merchant listing documentation on 7 July 2026, and lists them as recommended properties.
These fields sit inside your Product structured data, so check what your product template outputs before planning the change. We scanned 212 Australian Maropost/Neto stores and fully assessed 197: 161 publish product data with no Product JSON-LD, 35 publish it, and one is partial. For a store without Product JSON-LD, these fields come as part of building it, and the structured data step in our Neto SEO checklist is where to start.
Add a category to every product
The category property accepts either plain text or a CategoryCode object, and you can supply more than one value. Plain text works like the product_type attribute in your feed: a category label you define yourself. A CategoryCode maps to the Google Product Taxonomy, the same list your feed’s google_product_category attribute uses.
Add sale start and end dates
If you run a sale price, mark the start with validFrom and the end with either validThrough or priceValidUntil, in ISO 8601 format. All three can go directly on the Offer. If your sale price is defined in a separate price specification, put validFrom and validThrough on that instead, because Google says priceValidUntil does not apply there. Google recommends including the time and timezone, for example 2027-03-01T09:00:00+10:00, and the start date needs to be earlier than or equal to the end date. If you use priceValidUntil, keep it current: Google warns that a listing may not display if priceValidUntil is a past date.
Add category and sale dates at template level
Both properties belong in your product page template and feed mapping, so every product picks them up automatically.
Sale dates tell Google when the sale price stops applying. Google says the guidance aligns structured data with the sale_price_effective_date attribute in Merchant Center feeds, so if your feed already sets sale dates, use the same dates in your product page markup.
Getting checkout links and product schema implemented
We can build and test both for a Neto or Maropost store, and check your Merchant Center account for feed errors, missing attributes and eligibility issues at the same time. Checkout link templates and the category and sale-date properties are template-level fixes: built once, then re-checked whenever the theme or feed changes.
With both in place, we’d expect mobile shoppers who are ready to buy to reach your checkout in fewer steps, and the sale dates should help keep the prices Google shows in step with your site. Google decides when the checkout option appears, so no one can promise how often shoppers will see it.
Our free store check looks at a sample of your product pages the way Google and shopping systems see them, and tells you what we find, if anything, and what we’d recommend doing next. Get your free store check.
Checkout links and product schema at a glance
| Update | What it does | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout links (Australia since July 2026) | Gives mobile and tablet shoppers the option to go from a Shopping ad straight to your cart or checkout | Build and test a cart URL template, then set it in Merchant Center settings or add checkout_link_template per product, not both |
| Product category structured data | Tells Google your product’s category, in plain text or Google Product Taxonomy | Add category at template level, mirroring your feed’s product_type or google_product_category |
| Sale duration structured data | Tells Google when a sale price starts and stops applying | Add validFrom plus validThrough or priceValidUntil in ISO 8601 format whenever you run a sale |
