DMA: Google removes free product listings, Belgium among the hardest hit

Since 17 September 2026, free product listings have vanished from Google's results across the entire European Union. They drew on your Merchant Center feed and appeared at no advertising cost, alongside paid Shopping ads. The removal stems from the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the measured impact is strongest in Belgium.

1. What changed on 17 and 18 September

Within two days, the free product blocks powered by Merchant Center, along with the “popular products” carousels, disappeared from the European Economic Area. Ginny Marvin, who heads Google Ads product communications, confirms the removal answers the DMA's obligations. The freed-up space now goes to comparison shopping services (CSS), while paid Shopping ads remain unchanged. On 18 September, Google also extended its new “aggregator / provider” blocks to searches for restaurants, salons, tourist attractions and construction trades, a format until then reserved for travel and hospitality.

2. Belgium, one of the hardest-hit countries

Consultancy Productrise measured a 90 to 100% drop in the visibility of free product listings in Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands. According to these measurements, the impact is greatest in Belgium. This removal comes after a €460 million fine imposed on Google by the European Commission on 23 July 2026, precisely for its treatment of competing services in search results. A precedent already seen in the travel sector shows the scale of the risk: since hotel and restaurant pages were restructured in early September, direct booking traffic there has already dropped by 30%.

3. Local business, the next battleground

The 18 September extension to restaurants, hair salons, attractions and construction trades changes the picture for many Belgian businesses. No feed is required to appear in these new blocks: Google crawls the site's pages directly. In practice, a poorly maintained service listing, without a clear address, up-to-date hours or structured data, risks staying invisible, whatever advertising budget is spent elsewhere.

The AI lens, humans first

An AI tool can scan a site in minutes and spot uncrawled pages, missing structured data or outdated opening hours, work that would take hours by hand. But deciding what to do with the freed-up budget, comparison shopping engines, paid Shopping or nothing at all, remains a strategic choice. No one knows your average basket and margin better than the person who follows your account day to day. AI executes. Expertise decides, and keeps watch.