Merging Attributes
There is often a situation where different attribute names denote the same thing. For example, "Country of Manufacture", "Manufacturer", and "Manufacturing Country" are actually the same attribute. In such cases, it makes sense to combine them under one name, such as "Country of Manufacture". Such inconsistencies are called implicit duplicates. It's impossible to combine them automatically, so this needs to be done manually. However, Drag-and-Drop technology significantly simplifies the process.
If you drag one node into another using Drag-and-Drop while holding Ctrl, the dragged node (let's call it the source) will be merged with the target. If you drag nodes without Ctrl, only sorting or changing the Group is performed. Thus, the combination Ctrl + Drag-and-Drop is used for merging Attributes.
What Happens When Merging Attributes?
Connections with products or categories are not lost, so attribute Values are preserved. If the same product is linked to both the target and the merged Attribute, its Values are added to the target. For example, if the target attribute had "Russia/France", after merging they will become "Russia/France/Germany". New Values are added using a separator. If products were not linked to the target attribute, their connection simply changes from the merged attribute to the target. For clarity, you can watch the video example.
You can merge several Attributes with the target at once using multiple selection. Merging Attributes from different Groups is allowed.
Metadata in the target node does not change during merging. But keep in mind that sources are deleted along with their metadata.
Merging Groups
You can also merge Groups. In this case, all Attributes of the selected Group will be moved to the target, and the Group itself will be deleted.
After merging, nodes marked as mergeable will be deleted without the possibility of recovery. If the merge did not go as expected, only a database backup can help fix the situation.