Google's Product Grid Disappeared in 14 European Markets: What Retailers Need to Check
On 16 September 2026 Product Grid listings stopped appearing in all 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks, and a Comparison Sites section began appearing in the same markets on the same day.
On 16 September 2026, Product Grid listings stopped appearing in all 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks. A Comparison Sites section began appearing in the same markets on the same day. In the EEA a retailer's free product listings run through one comparison shopping service. Google Shopping appeared in the new section 16 to 35 times as often as the next-largest service. That is across Germany, France, Spain and Italy, on tracked queries from 9 to 29 September.
Which service represents your domain is quick to establish. It sits in the Merchant Center CSS dashboard, it costs nothing to check, and it decides which service places your free listings. Feed quality and your relationships with third-party catalogs sit alongside it.
What this measures: This counts how many tracked keywords display each section. It does not show whether a given merchant's products appear inside it, and it does not measure clicks. The markets are the 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks, which are 13 EU countries plus Norway. Other EEA markets exist and were not measured.
The switch happened on one day, in every tracked market
Product Grid listings stopped appearing in all 14 tracked EEA markets after 15 September. The Comparison Sites section began on 16 September, the same day in every one of them. Product Grid stayed flat throughout in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, which sit outside the change.
Google removed the grid to comply with a European Commission ruling of 23 July 2026 under the Digital Markets Act. The ruling found that Google favored its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results, and fined it EUR 460 million. Reuters reported a 60-day compliance window, and the September change landed inside it.
Google disagrees with the ruling. The change is a compliance step. Compliance does not establish that this particular layout has to remain, so treat the current arrangement as the position in the measured window.
One setting decides which service places your free listings
In the EEA, one comparison shopping service represents a merchant domain for free product listings. Google documents this per domain. Several services can be used for paid campaigns, and one carries the free listings. This rule predates the September change. What changed on 16 September is the place those listings appear.
Google Shopping appeared in the Comparison Sites section 16 to 35 times as often as the next-largest service. That is across Germany, France, Spain and Italy, on tracked queries from 9 to 29 September 2026. 71% of Comparison Sites appearances landed in result positions one to four, from 61% in France to 76% in Spain and Italy. It is premium space.
What the multiple counts. The 16 to 35 times comparison measures how often each service appears in the section. It does not measure an individual merchant's product visibility or performance. BrightEdge has not tested what changes when a merchant switches service. Google Shopping led the section across those three weeks. Read your own selection before deciding whether to change it.
Confirm which CSS represents your domain, resolve related disapprovals, and check whether priority products appear.
Where the selection does not match the destination, Merchant Center disapproves the products with the message "CSS not selected for this destination". Resolve the CSS mismatch, then check for any remaining eligibility issues.
Merchant Center and third-party catalogs provide separate routes into the section
| Route | Fed by | Your lever |
| Google Shopping box | Merchant Center feed, product and offer schema, page content | Feed quality, and which CSS represents your domain for free listings |
| Third-party service boxes | Each service's own catalog, fed by direct feeds, affiliate networks or feed partners | Presence and data accuracy in each service's catalog |
Coverage figures cover 1 September to 13 October 2026. Share and position figures cover 9 to 29 September 2026. Routes by which a product can appear in the Comparison Sites section. Source: BrightEdge Professional Services, with CSS mechanics from Google Merchant Center documentation.
Third-party comparison services use their own product catalogs, separate from Merchant Center. Retailers should check which services carry their products and whether the information is accurate.
Google Shopping appeared substantially more often than other services during the period measured. The section exists to give third-party services comparable prominence. Monitor changes in service appearances alongside your own product coverage.
Coverage returned to its previous level by 30 September
On 16 September, the number of tracked keywords showing a Comparison Sites section was 38% below the previous Product Grid baseline. Coverage increased through the remainder of September and matched the previous baseline on 30 September. The baseline is 53,035 keywords, day one counted 32,771, and 30 September counted 53,227.
Since 3 October, the combined count has remained 3% to 8% above that baseline.
These figures measure how often a product section appeared in tracked search results. They do not establish whether individual retailers retained their visibility or traffic. Changes in how the new section was collected may also have affected the early trend.
Markets did not move together
| Market | Day one | Index level, with the date of that reading |
| Germany | Fell to about half its old count | 108% to 111% of baseline on 3 October |
| Italy | Deep day-one drop | 108% to 111% of baseline on 3 October |
| Spain | Deep day-one drop | 108% to 111% of baseline on 3 October |
| Poland | Dipped less | At baseline on 13 October |
| Finland | Smaller early hit | About 14% below baseline on 13 October |
| Norway | Smaller early hit | About 6% below baseline on 13 October |
Selected markets, indexed to each market's own Product Grid average for 10 to 14 September. Source: BrightEdge Professional Services, 1 September to 13 October 2026. The six shown are the clearest examples of each pattern. The other eight tracked markets mostly follow the large-market or Poland shape.
Germany, Italy and Spain took the deepest day-one hits and recovered slowest, then sat above their old baselines on 3 October. Finland and Norway took smaller early hits and missed the 30 September step.
Finland and Norway remained below baseline on 13 October, the last day of the window. Both are small markets where a few dozen keywords move the index, so neither reading is a reliable guide alone.
What to do before the holiday peak
- Establish which CSS represents each merchant domain for free listings. Confirm the service, resolve eligibility issues, and assess that choice against your own product visibility. A market-wide share does not answer it.
- Annotate 16 September in European product reporting. The grid and the Comparison Sites section are different layouts, so measures either side are not like for like. Mark the date, report layout-specific measures separately, and keep the earlier history.
- Establish which third-party services carry your priority products, market by market. Those boxes fill from each service's own catalog. Record the service, the feed behind it, and whether the product data is accurate. Order the work by which markets carry your peak trading. The recovery index does not tell you where your catalog gaps are.
- Make the feed, the page and the structured data agree. Product information may appear across Google Shopping, third-party catalogs and AI shopping experiences. Match titles, prices, availability and identifiers across all of them.
- Compare clicks either side of 16 September. Compare product-page and non-product-page clicks before and after the change.
Start by checking CSS setup and product eligibility. Then prioritize the markets and products that matter most for holiday trading. Building coverage across third-party catalogs is slower, and how far up the list it belongs depends on which markets and products carry your peak.
Related check: product-page accessibility
Product-page accessibility is a related readiness check, and it sits outside the research above.
Crawlers vary in whether and when they execute JavaScript, and several AI crawlers fetch raw HTML without rendering it. Content that appears only after client-side rendering may be missed, so serve price, variants, availability and reviews in the page code itself.
Test this on your own pages. An industry average does not tell you which of your templates fail. Crawl a sample of product pages with JavaScript disabled and compare what appears with the browser view. Then check server logs for which crawlers fetched the full product content.
How to check this for your own site
Before you compare anything, note what changed in the reports. From the week of 27 September 2026, BrightEdge platform Product Grid reports reflect the new layout. Grid title, grid rank, product count and seller count can shift for reasons unrelated to SEO performance.
Find the keywords that lost a grid listing. In BrightEdge Product Grid reporting, pull the EEA keywords where your products appeared in the grid before 16 September, by market. Those are the keywords to follow through the switch.
Compare by market, with 16 September annotated. In Data Cube X and Product Grid reporting, compare keyword counts by listing type for your domain on either side of 16 September. Index each market to its 10 to 14 September average, as this edition does.
Compare clicks across the switch. In GSC Reporting, compare clicks to product pages and to non-product pages for your EEA markets before and after 16 September.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Comparison Sites section?
A section Google began showing on 16 September 2026, observed in the 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks, where comparison shopping services list products. Google Shopping, Google's own service, is one of them. It replaced the free product grid.
What is a comparison shopping service?
A service that places products in Google results in Europe, such as Google Shopping, idealo or billiger.de. A retailer selects one for its free listings.
Is the product grid gone everywhere?
No. The 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks all switched on 16 September. The UK, US, Canada and Australia kept the grid throughout the window.
Which markets did BrightEdge measure?
Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden. These are 13 EU countries plus Norway. Other EEA markets exist and were not measured, so this edition does not describe them. Share and position figures cover Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
Which comparison shopping service should I select?
This research does not answer that. Google Shopping appeared 16 to 35 times as often as the next-largest service. That is across Germany, France, Spain and Italy, from 9 to 29 September 2026. That figure measures how often each service shows up in the section. It does not measure how a merchant's products perform inside it, and BrightEdge has not tested what changes when a merchant switches service. Start by reading which service represents your domain.
Did EEA traffic drop when the grid was removed?
This edition measures visibility and does not measure clicks, so it cannot answer that. Compare clicks to your product pages and to your non-product pages either side of 16 September in your own reporting.
Are merchants keeping their visibility?
The counts cannot answer that. Keyword coverage of the Comparison Sites section matched the old Product Grid level by 30 September. The counts show how many keywords display the section. Whether a given merchant's products appear inside it is a different question. That depends on your CSS selection and on the feeds third-party services ingest.
Is the grid coming back?
Unknown. The change is a compliance step and Google disagrees with the ruling. Compliance with the decision does not establish that this particular layout has to remain.
Technical methodology
| Field | Value |
| Source | BrightEdge Professional Services Total Search Visibility daily collection on a tracked product query set |
| Window | 1 September to 13 October 2026, daily |
| Markets | The 14 EEA markets BrightEdge tracks, being 13 EU countries plus Norway. The UK, US, Canada and Australia serve as non-EEA comparisons and Product Grid stayed flat in all four |
| Metric | Distinct keywords per day, per market, showing a Product Grid through 15 September or a Comparison Sites section from 16 September. The combined series sums the 14 markets, so a keyword tracked in more than one market counts once in each |
| Baseline | Each market's Product Grid average for 10 to 14 September is set to 100, and the combined baseline is 53,035 keywords. 10 September is the start because Austria, Belgium and Czechia expanded their tracked sets that day |
| Transition days | Combined Product Grid keywords fell about 8% on 15 September, before the first Comparison Sites row appeared. This edition dates the switch to 16 September |
| Share and position | Google Shopping's multiple is its appearances in the section divided by the next-largest service's appearances. Tracked queries in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, 9 to 29 September 2026. This is a narrower window than the daily coverage collection, which runs 1 September to 13 October 2026 |
| Known alternative explanation | The 30 September step hit the largest markets together and row counts moved unevenly across markets. A classification change on the collection side has not been ruled out |
| Not measured | Clicks, revenue and AI surfaces. Whether the same keywords appear on both sides of the switch. Whether any individual merchant's products appear in the section. Whether selecting a different comparison shopping service changes a merchant's visibility |
| Context | The 23 July 2026 ruling and the 60-day compliance window come from public coverage |
Key takeaways
| Finding | Supporting evidence |
| One service represents your domain for free listings, and it is yours to read and change | One CSS carries free listings in the EEA. Google Shopping appeared 16 to 35 times as often as the next-largest service in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, 9 to 29 September 2026 |
| The switch happened on a single day across every tracked market | Product Grid listings stopped and Comparison Sites began on 16 September 2026 in all 14 tracked EEA markets |
| The section is premium space | 71% of Comparison Sites appearances land in positions one to four, from 61% in France to 76% in Spain and Italy |
| Part of your product visibility runs through third-party catalogs | Third-party catalogs are supplied separately from Merchant Center, directly or through partners |
| Coverage returned to its previous level | 38% below baseline on 16 September, level with the 53,035 baseline on 30 September |
What is still open
Three questions would change this advice if they resolved differently.
- Whether the supplier unit, Google's separate section for direct sellers, appears on product queries at all. No capture in this collection shows it.
- How Google ranks the services inside the section. We have not located documentation.
- Where clicks from the section are reported in Search Console and Merchant Center. We have not located documentation.
More from this series
See the rest of the Weekly AI & Search Insights series.
For more on the grid removal and the Google Shopping lead, read EEA Product Grid Is Gone: Google Shopping Still Leads.
For the access and rendering checks behind machine-readable product pages, read our guide to AI agents.
BrightEdge tracks product visibility across search and AI surfaces. See how your products appear in the markets that changed with Data Cube X, or request a demo.