Google Shopping shows up 16 to 35 times more frequently than its closest rival in the comparison box that now stands in for free product listings across Europe, according to BrightEdge data cited by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable on November 6, 2026. The figure lands on a change Google has framed as a loss for users and regulators have framed as a fix for competition. The early numbers suggest the fix has not yet produced a level field.
The backdrop is the Digital Markets Act. Because of the law, Google pulled the free product listings it ran across the continent, and it called the outcome the largest quality cut the product has ever taken. In their place, a box now lists comparison services. BrightEdge studied how that box behaves in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany.
Placement is the second finding. BrightEdge reported that 71 percent of Comparison Sites appearances fell within the top four result positions. The share ranged from 61 percent in France to 76 percent in Spain and Italy. BrightEdge’s own conclusion was that “the box is premium space.”
Taken together, the two results describe a high-value slot where one participant takes nearly all of the visibility. A box sitting near the top of the page matters only to the extent that a business can earn a place in it. If rival comparison shopping services (CSSs) are 16 to 35 times less visible than Google’s own service, the slot offers them little practical traffic.
Mike Ryan, an Austria-based practitioner, flagged the data on X. He said the change aimed to lift CSS exposure, then added that he had never seen a single CSS spotlighted except Google Shopping. He called that his n=1, and the caveat deserves weight. One practitioner’s observation is anecdote. BrightEdge’s figures turn it into a measurement, although only across four markets.
Readers should also hold the data at arm’s length. BrightEdge is an SEO platform vendor, and the source reports only its summary findings. The write-up does not describe how queries were selected, how many were sampled, or which dates the data covers. It also does not say how often the box appeared at all, so the multiples describe relative share inside the box, not reach across all European product searches.
Google has not been quoted in the source on whether the pattern matches what the DMA changes were meant to produce. That silence matters. A regulator assessing compliance would look at exactly this kind of distribution, namely who is shown, how often, and where on the page. A skewed split gives rivals a ready argument that the remedy changed the format without changing the winner.
For search teams, the practical stakes are different. Retailers selling in the four markets should check which comparison services carry their feeds, because visibility in the box depends on those intermediaries and not on the retailer’s own listing alone. If Google Shopping holds almost every prominent slot, feed quality and coverage inside Google’s own service become the dominant lever for product visibility in these countries. Teams that previously relied on free listings should compare their current European product traffic against the period before the removal, and separate paid from organic losses while doing it.
Next, watch whether BrightEdge or an independent tracker publishes the methodology and extends the sample beyond these four markets. Until then, treat the 16x to 35x gap as a strong vendor signal, not a settled benchmark, and budget European shopping visibility as if Google Shopping will keep the lead.
Based on reporting by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, published November 6, 2026, citing BrightEdge data.
