Google Shopping after the DMA Google's own service wins the new comparison box in the EEA. What BrightEdge's data shows and what to check in your store

Since September 16, 2026, Google no longer shows free product results in the European Economic Area. A box of price comparison services took their place, and according to BrightEdge, Google Shopping appears in it 16 to 35 times as often as the next service. The Digital Markets Act forced the change to give rival comparison sites more room. Data from Germany, France, Spain and Italy shows that so far Google’s own service has gained the most from it.

This affects every online store selling in the EEA. I cover what changed, what exactly BrightEdge measured, where its data stops and what I would check in a Merchant Center account.

What changed on September 16

In the EEA, Google removed free product listings and the “popular products” carousels, the results fed from Merchant Center that stores did not pay per click for. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, confirmed in a LinkedIn comment that the reason is the DMA ruling. Hugo Huijer of Productrise showed the carousels disappearing over about two days, with visibility down 90-100% in the EEA countries where he had enough data. A Semrush chart showed a similar drop.

Their place went to a section that BrightEdge calls Comparison Sites. Google’s documentation calls it an aggregator unit: a block of results from aggregator services (price comparison sites, travel agencies, business directories) shown only to users in the EEA. The top-ranked provider’s results are expanded by default. Users can pick another provider from a list, but they see the results of only one at a time.

Background: the European Commission ruling

According to BrightEdge, the Commission found on July 23, 2026 that Google had favored its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results, and fined it 460 million euros. A separate 430 million euro fine over Google Play came the same day. Google disagrees with the ruling. BrightEdge, citing Reuters, reports that Google said on September 8 that the changes are “the largest reduction in quality of service” in the search engine’s 29-year history.

This is not the first time the DMA has changed how marketers work: it was also behind Consent Mode v2 in Google’s ad products.

What BrightEdge’s data shows about Google Shopping

From September 1 to October 13, 2026, BrightEdge checked results daily for a fixed set of product queries in 14 EEA countries. It counted the keywords that showed a product section and compared them with the old product grid’s average for September 10-14. The UK, US, Canada and Australia served as the control group, and the UK kept its old grid.

The first-day drop and the recovery

On day one, the new section appeared for 38% fewer keywords than the old grid. Through September 29 the count stayed 12 to 23% below the baseline, on September 30 it moved above it, and from October 3 the combined count held 3-8% higher. BrightEdge notes that this measures volume and does not show whether the new box picked up the same keywords the old one had.

Market	What happened
Germany	About half the old keyword count on day one, 108-111% of baseline by October 3
Italy, Spain	The same path as Germany, above baseline from October 3
Poland	A smaller early dip, then steady at baseline
Finland	About 14% below baseline on October 13
Norway	About 6% below baseline on October 13

In Finland and Norway a few dozen keywords move the whole index, so BrightEdge suggests watching these markets rather than reading the dip as a lasting loss.

Who wins the comparison box

In Germany, France, Spain and Italy, Google Shopping appears in the box 16 to 35 times as often as the next-largest comparison service. The box itself sits high: 71% of its appearances fall in the top four results, from 61% in France to 76% in Spain and Italy. BrightEdge adds, citing its Total Search Visibility tool, that Google holds the space with the same products in over 94% of results.

Mike Ryan, an Austria-based specialist quoted by Search Engine Roundtable, wrote on X that the change was meant to boost the visibility of comparison services, yet he has not seen the box spotlight any service other than Google Shopping. He calls it a single observation of his own, and BrightEdge’s data backs it up on a larger sample.

Where the lead comes from: the CSS choice in Merchant Center

In the EEA, a store’s free listings run through a CSS (Comparison Shopping Service), the price comparison service selected in the CSS dashboard in Merchant Center. Google Shopping is one of them. According to BrightEdge, paid campaigns can use several CSSs, but free listings only one.

Google’s service has the most merchants and the largest catalog, so it most often takes the top spot in the box, which explains part of its lead. BrightEdge recommends choosing Google as the CSS for free listings in every Merchant Center account. That is BrightEdge’s advice, not Google’s, and the company admits it has not tested how a merchant with a different CSS shows up in the box.

I would treat it as a starting point, especially if a store already has a contract with another comparison site. BrightEdge names idealo, billiger.de and Bigshopper among the third-party services, but its data says nothing about their costs or contract terms.

What I would check in a store after the DMA changes

This list comes from BrightEdge’s data and Google’s documentation. It promises no growth, but it covers what a store can actually control.

1. The CSS selected for free listings. This is the one item fully in your hands. If the right service is not selected for a destination, Merchant Center disapproves the products with the message “CSS not selected for this destination”.
2. Your comparison sites and partners. The box draws on the comparison sites’ own catalogs, not only on your Merchant Center feed. List which comparison sites and affiliate networks carry your products in each EEA market.
3. Consistent data in every feed. Titles, images, price, availability and GTIN should match in Merchant Center and at your partners, because a shared identifier is how each service matches the right offer. The Merchant Center catalog also feeds AI shopping answers.
4. Feed quality. Missing attributes and disapprovals quietly drop products from results. Review the warnings, identifiers (GTIN, MPN, brand), images, prices and shipping details.
5. Machine-readable product pages. Price, variants, availability and reviews belong in the page code, not loaded later with client-side JavaScript. I cover Product and Offer markup that matches the feed and the page in my article on Schema.org for e-commerce.
6. A new baseline in your reports. Data from before and after September 16 comes from different page layouts, so comparing it directly is misleading. BrightEdge adds that from the week of September 27, tool reports already reflect the new layout, so product grid metrics can shift for reasons that have nothing to do with SEO.

I wrote about more and more of the purchase moving into the search engine itself in the article on Universal Cart. Both topics point the same way: product visibility depends more and more on feed data, not on the store’s page alone.

What this data does not tell you

• BrightEdge measures presence and positions in results, so traffic and sales are out of scope. It sees early signs of fewer clicks to product pages and more to other pages, but calls the pattern too unstable to draw conclusions.
• The regulation is meant to give other comparison services more visibility, yet BrightEdge has no data on how quickly rivals will gain.
• The share figures (16 to 35 times, 71% in the top four) cover four markets only. Markets with strong local comparison sites, Poland among them, may look different.
• Direct sellers are an open question. Next to the comparison box, Google’s documentation describes a separate supplier unit for direct providers, but BrightEdge has not captured it in its data, so it does not know whether it shows on product queries. Nobody outside Google knows yet how services are ordered within the box or where its traffic is reported in Search Console and Merchant Center.

Only a service that Google has approved as a Vertical Search Service, and that supplies data through a feed or an API, can appear in the box at all. BrightEdge adds that a business operating primarily as a marketplace cannot act as a comparison service (though it can list through one), and comparison service rules bar links to stores that sell only to businesses.

Summary

After September 16, stores still appear in product results in the EEA, only now inside the comparison box, where Google Shopping has a huge lead. It shows up 16 to 35 times as often as the next service, and the box itself sits in the top four results 71% of the time.

The CSS choice in Merchant Center is no longer a technical detail, and feed quality and consistency now decide visibility in several places at once. All of this rests on one analysis by one company, so before changing any settings I would check my own data in Search Console and Merchant Center reports, counting from September 16.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Google remove free product results in every EEA country?

Yes. The change covers the whole European Economic Area, and BrightEdge tracked it in 14 EEA countries, all hit on the same day. Ginny Marvin of Google confirmed in a LinkedIn comment that free listings were removed because of the DMA ruling.

What does it mean that Google Shopping appears 16 to 35 times as often?

BrightEdge counted how often each service appears in the new comparison box in Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Google Shopping appears 16 to 35 times as often as the next comparison service. The figure describes presence in results, not traffic or sales.

Which CSS should I choose for free listings in Merchant Center?

BrightEdge recommends Google Shopping because it has the most visibility in the box, although it has not tested how a merchant with a different CSS performs. Free listings can use only one service, while paid campaigns can use several.

Does my store need to be listed on comparison sites?

The box draws on the comparison sites' own catalogs, so whether your store appears in it depends on the data each comparison site holds, not only on your Merchant Center feed. Check which comparison sites and affiliate networks carry your products and whether the data matches.

Is this change temporary?

BrightEdge sees it as a compliance step and no sign that Google will reverse it while the Commission ruling stands. Google disagrees with the ruling, so things may still change.

Sources

1. Search Engine Roundtable: Google Shopping Dominating The European Product Search Results Post DMA https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-eu-dma-42456.html
2. BrightEdge: Europe's Product Grid Is Gone, but Google Shopping Still Leads the Replacement https://www.brightedge.com/blog/eea-product-grid-google-shopping
3. Search Engine Roundtable: Google Search Drops Free Product Listings From European Economic Area https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-free-product-listings-eea-42113.html
4. Google Search Central: Aggregator unit in Google Search https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/aggregator-unit