Organic “popular products” carousels have largely disappeared from Google’s product searches in the European Economic Area (EEA) since around 15-16 September, according to tracking by the vendor Productrise, whose screenshots show a unit of comparison shopping services in the slot. Google’s documentation for that aggregator unit says clicks inside it “lead directly to that aggregator’s website.” On 18 September, Google extended the same aggregator-and-supplier structure to local-business queries.
What changed for product searches on Google in the EEA?
Around 15-16 September, organic “popular products” carousels largely stopped appearing in EEA product searches, per Productrise’s tracking, while the UK, the US and Australia showed no change. Productrise’s screenshots show a unit labelled “Comparison Sites” in their place. Google’s documentation says clicks inside this aggregator unit go to the aggregator’s own website. On 18 September, Google added local-business queries to the same structure.
The Comparison Sites Unit Replaces the Carousel
Productrise, a paid product-tracking vendor whose founder Hugo Huijer publishes its findings, says the carousels essentially disappeared within days. In the five EEA countries where it has enough data (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden) the proportion of monitored queries with a carousel fell by roughly 90 to 100 percent, while the UK, the US and Australia show no movement. Before the change, about 85 percent of the commercial queries Productrise monitors showed at least one organic product carousel.
In the carousel’s place, according to Productrise’s screenshots, EEA searchers now see a unit labelled “Comparison Sites”: several comparison shopping services in expandable rows, one open by default. A click on a listing lands on the comparison site’s product page, Productrise reports, not on a Google product view. Google also appears in the list as one of the comparison sites. Expanding its row brings back a carousel-like product view, and clicking a product there opens a knowledge panel drawn from the Shopping Graph with multiple sellers; the cards show a price and an “& more prices” label instead of a store name.
How Google’s Aggregator Unit Works
Google’s own aggregator-unit documentation, last updated 18 September, describes the mechanism. The unit is “a multi-provider feature designed for Vertical Search Services (VSSs), including Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), Comparison Shopping Services, metasearch engines, and directories.” Per that page, “the top-ranked provider’s results are expanded by default,” and “only one aggregator unit will show at a time.” On where the click lands, Google is direct: “User clicks within the unit lead directly to that aggregator’s website.”
That routing applies to the aggregator unit specifically. A separate supplier unit, for direct providers such as “individual hotels or airlines, brick-and-mortar business owners, or providers of services like plumbing,” sits alongside it but “only appears if the aggregator unit appears.” None of the sources reports whether it is showing for product queries.
The path in differs by query type:
| Query type | Who fills the unit | How the data gets in | How to take part |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotels | Vertical Search Services | Direct data feed integration | Aggregator Features form, Lodging POI feed |
| Flights | Vertical Search Services | Real-time API | Aggregator Features form, Partner standard Live API |
| Trains or buses | Vertical Search Services | Real-time API | Aggregator Features form, Transport features API |
| Products | Comparison Shopping Services | Not stated on this page | CSS Center contact form |
| Local businesses | Vertical Search Services (for example, directories) | Direct data feed integration | Aggregator Features form, Local POI feed |
Local Business Queries Join the Same Units
Google’s 18 September changelog entry is brief: “The aggregator unit and supplier unit now support local business queries.” Local businesses are now the fifth query type on both pages, after hotels, flights, long-distance trains or buses, and products.
The mechanics trace to Google’s Actions Center, updated nine days earlier on 9 September. Google’s examples of local searches include dining, services like beauty salons, and things to do. The aggregator unit for these queries “replaces existing units,” per Google’s page, though it doesn’t specify which ones. Data comes from a Local Point of Interest Feed that “is used exclusively to populate the partner’s own unit. It will never be used to enrich Google’s own services or competitors’ units.”
Google’s supplier-unit page lists two conditions: the website “must serve users in the EEA,” and the business must be a direct provider. On the aggregator side, a directory needs Vertical Search Service approval, and has to send the feed, before it can appear. Which aggregators have been approved, and how often either unit shows, isn’t stated.
From the Fine to the Local Units: The Dates
- 23 July: The European Commission fines Google €460 million, part of a combined €890 million penalty, for giving its own shopping, hotels, transport and sports results preferential treatment in Search, and gives it 60 days to comply, under threat of periodic penalty payments of up to 5 percent of its total worldwide turnover.
- 8 September: Google rolls out the redesigned EEA search layout.
- 9 September: Google’s Actions Center updates its Local Vertical Search Service overview for local queries.
- Around 15-16 September: Organic product carousels collapse in EEA search results, per Productrise’s tracking.
- 17 September: Productrise publishes its carousel data.
- 18 September: Google adds local-business support to the aggregator and supplier units; Search Engine Roundtable reports that Google’s Ads Liaison confirmed in a LinkedIn comment that free product listings were removed in the EEA.
What the Free-Listings Report Does and Doesn’t Confirm
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reports that Google’s Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, confirmed in a LinkedIn comment that Google removed free product listings in the EEA because of the DMA ruling. We couldn’t read that comment ourselves, and we found no Google blog post or Merchant Center help-page update saying the same thing. Treat the removal as reported, not as something Google has documented.
Two broader readings go further than the sources: that free listings are gone from every Google surface, and that every product click now ends on a comparison site. The Shopping tab has left the top menu but is still reachable by adding &udm=28 or &tbm=shop to a search URL, according to Paul Schreiner, an ecommerce SEO in Germany whom Productrise cites. And Google’s own row inside the Comparison Sites unit still opens a Shopping Graph panel with multiple sellers, per Productrise.
What to Check in Your Reports
No source in this story publishes a click or revenue number for the EEA change, so start with your own reports.
In GA4, Merchant Center’s help page says that with Merchant Center auto-tagging on, free-listing traffic appears as “Shopping free listings” in the source platform dimension, while its source and medium read “google” and “organic”, the same as an ordinary search click. The source platform dimension is therefore the one that separates them. Filter it by EEA countries against the rest and check whether the split moved after 15-16 September. In Search Console, filter by country, as we suggested for EU markets after the 8 September layout change, and group the EEA markets against the rest. Add annotations on 15-16 September and on 18 September.
Merchant Center’s performance-report help documents a traffic filter for Ads versus Organic; we found no country split documented there, so pair it with GA4 or Search Console. If a click now reaches your product page through a comparison site rather than a free listing, it would most likely be credited in GA4 to that comparison site (as a referral, or under any tags the site adds), not to Shopping free listings. That’s our inference: Google’s documentation stops at the click to the aggregator’s website, and no source has measured it.
If you add your own tracking parameters to feed URLs, Merchant Center’s help page recommends “separate tracking parameters for ads and free listings,” with “utm_source=feed&utm_medium=free” as its own example. Typing that by hand across a feed is how mismatched tags creep in; elsop’s campaign URL builder lets you build and check the pattern on one URL before you apply it across the feed.
The Commission’s 23 July decision gave Google 60 days to comply, and Search Engine Journal found no Commission statement, as of 18 September, on whether the redesign satisfies the order. Until one appears, treat the EEA product page as unsettled and keep the annotations dated.
