The comparison website
Every Comparison Shopping Service has to be an actual comparison shopping service. The website is not a formality attached to the programme. It is the thing the programme is named after.
The requirement
Google requires every CSS to operate a functioning price comparison website carrying real product listings from real merchants. No site, no certification. It is checked at audit and it remains a condition afterwards.
What it has to be
- A working comparison experience: products, prices, merchants, and a route from a listing to a merchant’s site.
- Populated with genuine listings, not placeholders or a token catalogue.
- On a domain you control, carrying your branding.
- Localised for the markets you operate in.
- Maintained. A site that decays after approval is a current compliance problem, not a historical one.
The domain point matters commercially as well as technically. The attribution clicks from every client’s Shopping ads land here, so a domain you do not own is an audience you do not own.
Who does the work
In a whitelabel arrangement, the provider does. Cobiro builds the branded site on your domain and handles population, localisation and ongoing compliance; you supply the brand and the domain. That division exists because keeping a comparison site populated and compliant across markets is continuous work with no relationship to running an agency.
What to ask a provider
- Show me a site you have already taken through Google’s audit.
- How many merchants and products will mine carry at launch, and after six months?
- Which markets is it localised for?
- Who owns the domain, and what happens to it if I leave?
- Who is responsible if Google raises a compliance issue against it?
Treat it as an asset
Most agencies think of the comparison site as a compliance cost. It is also a domain receiving thousands of high-intent shopping visits a month with your brand on it. The agencies that get the most out of whitelabel are the ones that noticed.