Welcome to the Pulse: this week, updates redefine what a commercial result looks like in Europe, put a view count back on Business Profile posts, and draw more of ChatGPT’s product picks from merchant feeds.
Here’s what matters for you and your work.
Google Redesigned Commercial Search Results Across The EEA
Google has introduced a new layout for Search results in some commercial queries within the European Economic Area. This layout includes specialized units for comparison sites and direct suppliers.
Key facts:
Google Search Central documented both units on September 8, confirming their availability to users in the EEA. Aggregators get a unit with the top-ranked provider expanded by default, and they have feed or API work to do first. Direct suppliers get their own unit with no extra data work, but it only appears alongside an aggregator unit. Google also introduced a hub outlining seven regional features across the EEA, Türkiye, and South Africa.
Why This Matters
Rank tracking and Search Console data from these countries can differ from what the same queries return in other regions, so a regional decline may be the new results layout rather than a change in performance.
Read our full coverage: Google Rolls Out Redesigned Search Results Across The EEA
Business Profile Posts Get View Counts Again
Google has started rolling out view counts on Business Profile posts globally. It has been more than three and a half years since they discontinued the previous metric.
Key facts:
The news came in the September Small Business Bulletin, posted to the Business Profile Help Community by Google employee Lisa Landsman. Counts appear on each post card in the dashboard, cover posts from the past 18 months on a rolling basis, and combine views from Search and Maps. Google says the data isn’t in the API yet. The old post metrics ended on Feb. 20, 2023 with no replacement.
Why This Matters
Post performance has been a blind spot since 2023, with the count covering views for updates, offers, and events across both surfaces. It shows views, not clicks, which Google retired, so the number indicates a post was seen but not its impact.
Read our full coverage: Google Adds Post View Counts To Business Profiles
ChatGPT Shopping Leans Harder On Product Feeds
Profound’s data indicates that ChatGPT Shopping mainly chooses its products from what Profound calls feed-integrated sources.
Key facts:
Feed-integrated product recommendations rose from 8.26% to 61.54% on July 10, across 1,757,723 tracked prompt runs in July. Profound processes daily prompts and labels products from logs; this data reflects those, not ChatGPT’s shopping activity. From July 7-9 to 10-12, 450 of 687 Profound customers had at least a one-third decrease in Shopping visibility, while 67 gained at least that much.
Why This Matters
Most product recommendations in the report’s sample came from a connected feed. This may offer a different path into ChatGPT’s recommendation system than traditional ranking methods. The data focuses on one vendor’s tracked prompts rather than shopper sessions, and it doesn’t reveal how ChatGPT ranks products once it pulls from feeds.
Read our full coverage: ChatGPT Shopping Results Lean Hard On Product Feeds
Mueller Says Old Low-Value Pages May Still Weigh On Recovery
Google’s John Mueller notes that older, low-value programmatic pages may affect how Google’s systems evaluate a site, even after those pages are updated.
Key facts:
Mueller replied to a person whose website automatically generated pages from combinations of domain names, technologies, and attributes. He suggested that Google’s systems might have “possibly lost faith in your site providing good value to users.”
Why This Matters
Cleaning up pages and demonstrating value are two separate tasks, and Mueller highlighted the importance of demonstrating value. It may take time to regain Google’s trust, even after cleanup work is done. It may take time to regain Google’s trust, even after cleanup work is done.
Read our full coverage: Google Says Old Low-Value Pages May Affect Site Recovery
A UK Site Lost 98% Of Its News Visibility After A .com Move
According to NewzDash reports, a UK news website saw a 98% drop in visibility on trending Google news searches in the two weeks after switching from .co.uk to .com.
Key facts:
NewzDash founder John Shehata shared on LinkedIn that the site had held a Search Visibility of 1% to 2% for monitored news queries for the 14 months before the move. However, after a recent change, visibility dropped sharply to 0.02% within just two weeks and hasn’t bounced back even after four months. Shehata mentions the site was already navigating core updates and technical challenges, so the move isn’t shown to be the sole cause. The post doesn’t name the site or share the data.
Why This Matters
Migrations become hard to undo once visibility is gone. This migration showed up in two weeks and wasn’t reversed four months later, with core updates and technical problems in play alongside it. Planning a move means budgeting for a recovery period in months, not the weeks a normal ranking dip takes.
Read our full coverage: UK Site Loses 98% Of News Search Visibility After .com Move
Theme Of The Week: Getting In Before Getting Ranked
Three of this week’s stories are about getting in rather than about ranking.
Google’s new European results give comparison sites a spot of their own, and you have to send Google a data feed to be in it.
The businesses themselves get a second slot, but it only appears when a comparison site does. Most of ChatGPT’s product recommendations now come from stores that provide a feed. And the UK publisher’s new domain never picked up what the old one had built.
Mueller’s story is the one you can’t apply for. If old pages cost a site Google’s confidence, no feed fixes that, and he says showing value again takes time and effort.
Feeds and domain decisions usually sit with someone other than whoever owns rankings.
Top Stories Of The Week:
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Featured Image: Cast Of Thousands/Shutterstock
