Google removes free product listings from EEA search

Google has removed free product listings and the “popular products” carousels from search results across the European Economic Area, and the drop was close to total within about 48 hours. For retail chains that relied on those unpaid slots, the routes left to appear in EEA product searches are now a comparison shopping service or paid Shopping ads, though products can still show for free on other Google surfaces such as the Shopping tab, Maps and Images. The change is a Digital Markets Act compliance step, and it landed as Google’s deadline to end its self-preferencing arrived.

What happened

Free product listings and the popular-products carousels disappeared from Google search across the EEA over roughly 17 and 18 September 2026. Independent trackers recorded near-total losses: Hugo Huijer of Productrise and Semrush data both showed drops of around 90 to 100 percent in Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands. Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liaison, confirmed that the removal followed from the Digital Markets Act requirements in Europe.

The action ties back to the European Commission’s decision in case DMA.100193, adopted on 23 July 2026, which fined Alphabet 460 million euro, part of 890 million euro in penalties issued that day, for giving its own services more favourable treatment than comparable third-party services in Google Search, and ordered the practice to end within 60 days. Counting 60 days from adoption puts the compliance deadline at 21 September 2026. The free product slots are among the surfaces Google has now pulled to comply, alongside the redesigned EEA search layout with its aggregator and supplier units that rolled out earlier in the month.

The removal took the free product slots out of search results, not the free-listings feature itself. Products can still appear at no cost on other Google surfaces, including the Shopping tab, Maps, Images and Lens, and Google’s policy still lets a merchant place free listings in Europe by selecting one comparison shopping service to represent them. Paid Shopping ads kept running through the change, though the European Commission has noted that Google is separately testing changes to how it presents Shopping ads. So the practical routes back into EEA product search are enrolling with a CSS for free listings or funding Shopping ads through one.

Why it matters

For a retail brand, a free channel that carried product visibility in European search results has effectively closed in a single week. The slots do not come back through better product data or feed hygiene, because the removal is regulatory, not a ranking change. A national or pan-European chain now reaches product searchers through a CSS relationship or a Shopping ad budget, both of which carry cost and setup that unpaid listings did not.

The change is also EEA-specific, so a retailer operating inside and outside the bloc now sees two different results pages for the same product query. What shows in Stockholm, Berlin or Paris is not what shows in a market outside the DMA’s reach, so a single national spot check no longer describes the picture.

What this means for retail

The immediate decision is a commercial one: whether to move product visibility onto a comparison shopping service, into paid Shopping, or a mix, and how to fund it across markets that until this month cost nothing to appear in. That work sits with the performance and ecommerce side of the house. The point for a location and brand-presence team is what does not disappear, and what becomes more valuable as the free product real estate goes.

The surfaces a retailer still controls without paying for placement are its own presence: the store and brand results, the map pack, and the local queries where the EEA redesign now shows supplier units. Those are decided by the accuracy of the data a brand publishes about every location. Keeping location listings consistent across Google and the other maps and search surfaces keeps a chain visible in the results that stay free, and a well-run store locator gives a shopper who finds the brand a direct path to the nearest store that no comparison service sits between. For chains weighing where to spend now, the owned local channel is the one that still returns nearby demand at no media cost.

“Comparison Shopping Services (CSSs) must be used to place Shopping ads and free product listings on Google on behalf of merchants.”

Google Merchant Center Help

The wider signal is the one the DMA keeps sending: Google’s European results page is being redrawn category by category, and unpaid visibility is getting scarcer on it. A retail estate that treats accurate, complete location data as the foundation of its European presence holds on to the free surfaces that are left while the paid and CSS decisions get made.

The bottom line

Free product listings were a no-cost route to product visibility in European search, and as of this week they are gone from EEA search results. Retailers now reach that placement through a CSS or Shopping ads, or they lean harder on the owned and local channels the DMA has not touched. The brands that come through this best will be the ones that keep their location data clean enough to stay present in the local and organic results that remain, rather than treating them as an afterthought to the product feed.