Google announced several new updates to the Merchant Center performance report, starting on August 24, 2026. There are four updates: separating YouTube affiliate results from organic traffic, updating the YouTube organic traffic definitions, expanding product-level reporting for Google Ads, and adding new performance segmentation capabilities.
Google said these updates should "improve clarity and provide a comprehensive view of your product impact. These updates aim for greater consistency across Google surfaces by aligning reporting definitions between Merchant Center and other platforms like Google Ads and YouTube."
Here are the changes in more detail:
(1) Separation of YouTube affiliate results from organic traffic: Products eligible for commission will now be reported as a distinct interaction type and will be tracked in under a new traffic value of "Youtube affiliate." Google added that YouTube affiliate traffic, which allows creators to earn commissions by featuring your products. This will be excluded from the "Organic" reporting value, potentially causing a one-time significant drop in organic traffic, but will provide a clearer view of your standard free listing performance going forward. For products not eligible for commission, these will continue to be reported under the value of "Organic". This will be rolled out on August 24th, 2026 and also affect historical data starting from July 1st, 2026.
(2) Updated YouTube organic traffic definitions: Google is aligning its definitions for organic clicks and impressions related to YouTube traffic with established YouTube reporting standards. This update ensures your performance data remains accurate and provides consistent measurement across the Google ecosystem. This one-time change can lead to a drop in your reported organic traffic. This will be rolled out on August 24th, 2026 and also affect historical data starting from July 1st, 2026.
(3) Expanded product-level reporting for Google ads: Ads Product-level reporting is expanding to include performance from all ad channels and formats. This change is aligned with Google Ads to provide a centralized view of how your products perform, including data for all networks in Performance Max campaigns, as well as metrics for Video, App, and Demand Gen campaigns. This may cause a one-time increase in metrics such as impressions, clicks, and more. Learn more about these changes in Google's Google Ads help center about Product Reporting.
(4) New performance segmentation capabilities: To improve transparency across the various analytics reports, Google will be introducing new ways to segment your performance data by adding a new “Network” dimension which is similar to Google Ads. This allows you to better analyze channel-specific efficiency and compare performance across different Google Network. Google said this is not launching on August 24th but will "be launched in the future for Merchant Center."
Finally, Google noted that "historical data will only be retroactively updated for the separation of YouTube affiliate results and updated Youtube organic traffic definitions."
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
