New shopping element discovered: Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) carousels

On September 17, we reported that Google's organic product carousels were disappearing from search results across the European Economic Area. In their place, Google now shows a different type of result: the Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) carousel. It still scrolls horizontally and it still shows products, but it works very differently from the product carousels you're used to.

Google gives this element a local title in each language. In our current data, for example, it appears as "Comparison sites" in English, "Vergelijkingssites" in Dutch and "Jämförelsewebbplatser" in Swedish. These are just a few examples, and Google may change them over time.

This article documents what the CSS carousel looks like, how often it shows up in a few example countries, and how you can track it in Productrise. For the background on why this is happening (the Digital Markets Act, the fine, and Google's redesign of EEA search results), see our earlier article on product carousels disappearing in the EEA. While digging through the same data, we also found a new element outside the EEA, which we documented in a separate article about Shop by store carousels.

What the CSS carousel looks like

This is the CSS carousel for the query "airfryer" in the Netherlands, with the first comparison site expanded.

The charts below show what happened to product results in September in four example countries. The CSS carousel appears in other EEA countries too. These are just the ones we picked for this article. We'll start with the Netherlands.

Belgium shows almost the same pattern.

Ireland follows the same pattern, with one difference: some classic product carousels came back next to the CSS carousel.

Sweden started from a lower baseline, so its chart uses a different scale, but the shape is the same.

What we're seeing in the data

Across our example countries, the story is very similar:

• Product carousels disappeared around September 16. Before that, product carousels showed up for most of our tracked queries in the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, often several times on the same page. Sweden had a lower baseline, which is down to our Swedish query set. Within a day or two, classic carousels dropped to a few percent of tracked queries in every example country.
• CSS carousels appear in our data from September 24. The element was already visible in live results in the days before, as the screenshots in our September 17 article show. From September 24 onwards, it shows up consistently in our tracking, and its share grew over the following days.
• CSS carousels fill roughly half to two-thirds of the void. By the end of September, the CSS carousel appeared on roughly a third to half of our tracked queries, depending on the country. Compared to how often product carousels used to show up, that means roughly half to two-thirds of the queries that lost their product carousels now show a CSS carousel instead. The rest show no product element at all.
• Classic carousels haven't really come back. In the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, they're still down to a few percent of tracked queries. Ireland is the exception, where a small share of classic carousels reappeared next to the CSS carousel.
• There are far fewer product listings on the page. Before the change, a results page with product carousels usually had two to three of them, each with its own row of products. We track the long-run numbers in our insights on how many product carousels appear on a results page and how many organic products Google shows on average. Now there's a single CSS carousel with a maximum of 64 products. Searchers only see one comparison site's products by default, so what's visible without clicking is a lot smaller.

Outside the EEA, classic product carousels are still very much alive. The US and Australia even show a few element types that Europe doesn't get, as we describe in our Shop by store article.

How the CSS carousel works

Technically, the CSS carousel is still a carousel. As a result type, though, it has little in common with a "Popular products" carousel.

• It lists comparison sites, not products. Each comparison shopping service gets its own collapsible row. One row is expanded by default and shows that site's products.
• It has a fixed maximum, for now. In our data, it seems to be capped at 8 comparison sites with 8 products each, so 64 products at most. Google may change this.
• It appears once per page. We've never seen more than one CSS carousel on the same results page.
• There's no seller on the product cards. Instead of a store name, a card shows a price followed by "& more prices".
• Clicks go to the comparison site. Clicking a product in a comparison site's row takes you to that site's product page, not to a merchant's product page.

Google often lists itself as one of the comparison sites, but not always. When it does, its row shows products from Google Shopping, and clicking one opens a product knowledge panel with multiple sellers. The other rows show products from the comparison sites' own catalogs.

How Productrise tracks CSS carousels

In raw search data, a CSS carousel looks almost the same as a regular product carousel. Both contain a number of product listings with the same three main components: a title, a price and an image. The heading Google puts above the block is what tells them apart. So as of September 29, Productrise stores that heading and shows it for every tracked product. You can read the full update in our changelog.

I recorded a short video that walks through how this works, including the CSS carousel and other carousel types like In stores nearby.

When you hover a product in the SERP Position Tracker, the tooltip shows the element title. This example is for the Dutch query "champagne muur", where a wallcovering sits in position 3 of the CSS carousel.

You'll notice the tooltip says "Seller not shown". That's because CSS product cards don't list a seller, and Productrise labels those listings clearly instead of leaving them blank.

The CSS carousel doesn't always sit at the top of the page either. For the query "luxe tafelrok kopen", it appeared low on the page on some days and wasn't on the first page at all on others.

Showing which comparison site each product was listed under is coming soon, so keep an eye on our changelog.

What this means if you sell in the EEA

It's still early, and the layout may change again. With that caveat, a few things seem worth doing now.

• Watch your organic clicks. When a product appears in a comparison site's row, the click lands on that comparison site first. Your EEA organic clicks in Merchant Center might reflect that.
• Check which comparison sites show up for your queries. The list differs by query and by country. If a comparison site keeps appearing for your most important queries, it might be worth checking whether your products are listed there, and with correct data.
• Keep your feed and structured data in order. When Google lists itself, its row pulls from Google Shopping. Your Merchant Center feed and your product structured data are two separate systems, and both need to match.
• Remember the Shopping tab. Shoppers can still reach Google Shopping directly, as we covered in our article on shoppers still having Google Shopping in the EEA.

Track CSS carousels for your own queries

If you sell in the EEA, the element title is the fastest way to see which of your rankings now come from a CSS carousel. You can create a free Productrise account and start tracking your queries in any country, no credit card required. Rank tracking is included in the free plan, and you can see what's in the paid plans on our pricing page.

If you also track the US or Australia, read our article on Shop by store carousels. It uses a similar layout, applied in a very different way.