Catalog Rules include a set of default rules provided by Marketplacer, alongside any custom rules you create. Default rules enforce common data-quality standards, such as requiring a category, image, or brand. They apply consistently across manual entry, spreadsheet uploads, and API/MConnect integrations, and you can review, enable, or disable each one from ADVERTS > Catalog Rules.
What's always required
A small set of validations are always required and sit outside Catalog Rules entirely. Every product must have a title, description, and price.
How a rule failure is handled
When part of a create or update request fails a catalog rule, only the failing part is affected. The rest of the request still applies. For example, if a stock update and a title change are sent together and the title fails a rule, the stock update still goes through; only the title is flagged.
Each rule has a Rule outcome that you can set independently:
- Unpublish: the product is taken offline until it's fixed.
- Warning: the product stays online, but shows a catalog rule error.
Default rules
Default rules appear as regular rows in the Catalog Rules table alongside any custom rules you've created. A column identifies each row as System or Custom, and all default rules are scoped to All categories.
Product-level rules
| Catalog rule | Enabled by default |
| Product title must not contain HTML or embedded code | Yes |
| Product title must not contain a web address | Yes |
| Product title must not contain an email address | Yes |
| Product description must not contain HTML or embedded code | Yes |
| Product description must not contain a web address | Yes |
| Product description must not contain an email address | Yes |
| Every product must be assigned to a category | Yes |
| A leaf category must be selected for every product | No |
| Products in this category require a brand | No |
| Every product must have at least one image | Yes |
| Every product must have at least one variant | No |
| The product's options must be complete, valid for its category, and not have duplicate values | Yes |
Variant-level rules
| Catalog rule | Enabled by default |
| Each variant's options must match the options set on the product, with no duplicate values | Yes |
| Each variant must have a unique combination of option values | No |
Where catalog rule errors appear
Where an error shows up depends on how a product is created or updated.
- Manual entry: errors show on the product form.
- Seller Portal: catalog rule errors show under the meets rules column when viewing a product or variant directly. See View or edit a product in the Seller Portal.
- Spreadsheet: errors for these rules appear in the Catalog Rule Errors column, separate from the general Errors column. See Bulk upload spreadsheet reference.
- MConnect: catalog rule errors don't display in MConnect. MConnect shows mandatory validation errors in the Advert Errors field; check the Seller Portal for catalog rule errors.
- GraphQL and API v2: read the catalog rule error fields in the API response. See the Marketplacer developer documentation for the current field names and request parameters for the AdvertUpsert mutation and the V2 API.
Note: An integration that only reads the standard errors field may not surface a catalog rule failure. Read the catalog rule error fields as well, or a product can be unpublished without your integration receiving an error.
Reviewing and configuring these rules
Review, enable, or disable any of these rules the same way as any other catalog rule. See Enable or disable a catalog rule and Catalog rules.
Tip: If you're not sure which catalog rules currently apply to your marketplace, or want help understanding how this affects your integration, reach out to your Customer Success or Solutions Engineering contact.
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