Google listings: should you be worried about the 80% drop in views in Europe?

Since late September 2026, Google has been recording up to 80% fewer Search views for listings of businesses located in the European Economic Area (EEA). That’s what the Google Business Profile data from 245,000 European businesses tracked by Partoo shows. What really matters hasn’t changed: calls, direction requests, and website clicks remain at the same level. Here’s what these figures reveal, the most likely explanation behind them, and the metrics to track while we wait for confirmation from Google.

What Partoo’s data shows

The drop began on 22 September 2026, on the same day in every EEA country, and is affecting all sectors and businesses of all sizes. 95% of the European businesses tracked have lost more than half of their Search views, and almost none have fallen to zero.

Actions are counted across Search and Google Maps combined. Google doesn’t specify where they come from.

The drop stops exactly at the border of the EEA, which is made up of the 27 European Union countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Across the 61,000 businesses Partoo tracks outside the EEA, in the UK, Switzerland, Mexico, or the United States, Search views haven’t changed.

An independent study published on 13 October 2026 by GMBapi across a separate cohort of 15,000 European businesses reached the same conclusion: a 71% to 74% drop in Search views between 22 and 26 September, near-stable Maps views and actions, and zero drop-off across the US, the UK, or Switzerland.

Methodology: Google Business Profile data from 245,000 businesses located in the EEA and 61,000 outside the EEA, tracked by Partoo from 9 September to 11 October 2026. Analysis by Partoo’s Data team, October 2026.

The most likely explanation: Google’s compliance with the DMA

The timing and geography of the drop match the overhaul of search results that Google is rolling out in the EEA to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). On 23 July 2026, the European Commission fined Google €460 million for favouring its own services in Search, and gave it 60 days to comply, until around 21 September.

In response, Google is displaying new result blocks in the EEA: an aggregator block (‘Aggregator Unit’ in Google’s documentation), fed by directories and comparison sites, and a providers block, which showcases businesses’ websites. Launched on 8 September for hotels, flights, and products, they were extended to local business searches on 18 September. According to Google’s documentation, as reported by Search Engine Journal, these blocks replace the existing ones on the results page for local searches.

There are two ways to look at this. Either Google listings genuinely appear less often in Search, or they show up within these new blocks without those impressions being counted as profile views.

Our data points to the second explanation. Every business category has been hit, even sectors where directories and aggregator sites don’t feature in the results. The drop can’t be put down purely to the replacement of Google’s local pack; it likely reflects a broader shift in how Google calculates Search impressions across Europe.

Either way, we still see a link to the DMA: the timeline matches perfectly, and it’s exclusive to the EEA. The other explanations we considered, such as the rollout of AI Overviews, seasonality, or a data collection error, account for neither the date shared by every country nor the exact cut-off at the EEA border.

To understand the DMA and the new search results layout, read our article on Google’s DMA-related changes.

What it means for you

Calls, direction requests, and website clicks haven’t dropped. First and foremost, it’s the Search views metric that is no longer comparable with what it used to be. A few adjustments will help you keep managing your local presence with reliable figures.

• Stop comparing Search views from before and after 22 September 2026. According to GMBapi, Google is unable to recalculate historical data, so year-on-year comparisons will be skewed until September 2027. Flag this date in your reports.
• Focus on actions first. Calls, direction requests, and website clicks measure what users are actually doing, taking usual seasonal patterns into account.
• Don’t edit your listings to fix the drop. Changing a category, description, or photos has no effect on this phenomenon, which affects every business in the EEA. The drop isn’t linked to a sync error, your listing settings, or any sort of penalty.
• Compare your businesses within the same region. If your network includes branches in the UK or Switzerland, their Search views aren’t dropping, so any gap between them and your stores in France or Spain tells you nothing about their actual performance.
• Look after your website’s local pages. The providers block relies on what Google can crawl on your website. Up-to-date pages for each business (address, opening hours, services) increase your chances of appearing in it.

Are you a Partoo client?

October’s daily statistics will appear in your Partoo dashboards at the end of October, and keyword searches between 5 and 10 November. Your Customer Success Manager can review how your businesses are trending with you and help you choose which metrics to track.

October’s daily statistics will appear in your Partoo dashboards at the end of October, and keyword searches between 5 and 10 November. Your Customer Success Manager can review how your businesses are trending with you and help you choose which metrics to track.

What we don’t know yet

Google hasn’t released any official statement regarding the shift in numbers. Partoo has reached out to Google and is currently awaiting formal confirmation. For now, the DMA connection rests on the matching dates and affected countries, whilst Google’s support team has only mentioned to GMBapi a possible change in the way views are attributed.

The next clue will come from October’s keyword searches, which Google publishes with a few days’ delay. This will be the first full month since the change. Searches, meaning the user queries that triggered a listing, combine Google Search and Google Maps. They should fall more sharply for businesses people mainly find through Search (banks, insurance, services) than for those mainly found on Maps (restaurants, local shops).

At this stage, nobody knows whether Search views will bounce back. We’ll update this article with Partoo’s November data, or as soon as Google makes an announcement.

Partoo’s Local Pack, a new module in Google’s local results

The DMA is also opening up Google’s local results to other players. Partoo is one of the approved aggregators: Partoo’s Local Pack can appear in Search for queries such as ‘bank London’ or ‘hairdresser Manchester’, with a map and our clients’ businesses.

Each click leads directly to the business’s page on the brand’s website, and tracking parameters (UTM) let you measure these visits in your analytics tool. That’s one more reason to track your local pages as well as the actions on your listings. To find out more, read our article on Partoo’s Local Pack.