Unlocking Organic Shopping: 8 Key Insights from Google’s Free Listings

Ranking Challenges in Google’s Organic Shopping Results

Navigating the complexities of Google’s organic shopping results can be challenging for businesses striving to improve their visibility. These insights aim to streamline your understanding of free listings and their potential for e-commerce success.

In recent years, Google’s free listing features have grown significantly, becoming a cornerstone for e-commerce businesses worldwide. For retailers, these listings represent an opportunity to gain exposure without the cost of paid ads. However, achieving meaningful results requires a strategic approach and a deep understanding of how Google Shopping operates.

Working extensively in e-commerce , we often encounter obstacles related to optimizing stores for visibility in free listing results . The overlap between free listings and ads—both managed through product feeds in Google Merchant Center (GMC) Next —complicates troubleshooting due to unclear documentation from Google . This lack of clarity can leave even experienced marketers feeling overwhelmed.

This article explores eight critical insights into organic shopping that are essential for improving free listings’ visibility. By addressing these challenges head-on, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth and revenue generation.

1. GMC Next Organic Reporting

Confusion surrounds the “organic” analytics reporting in GMC Next, as Google’s documentation lacks clarity. Many assume the data in the Analytics > Products tab reflects purely free listing-related traffic for stores when filtered by organic.

The dashboard states this data represents “traffic to product pages on your website.” However, this reporting blends free listings traffic with other organic sources, rendering it ineffective for product feed-specific troubleshooting.

GMC Next’s product performance documentation clarifies that “clicks” refer to “the total number of clicks on your products on Google that led to visits to your product detail pages,” unrelated to specific product feed activities. Consequently, GMC Next organic reporting offers limited value to SEO professionals for troubleshooting purposes.

Instead, focus on the Merchant listings filter in Google Search Console and the Organic shopping channel in GA4 to assess revenue impact. These tools provide a clearer picture of how free listings contribute to overall performance.

For example, if you notice a decline in clicks or impressions within the Merchant listings filter, it may indicate issues with product feed optimization or eligibility. Addressing these problems early can prevent long-term setbacks in organic shopping performance.

2. Declining Branded Searches

The global rollout of free listings has led to reduced clicks for branded queries. A declining click-through rate (CTR) in Google Search Console is evident as various free listing units (popular products, deals, nearby stores, etc.) now dominate search results.

Improvement recommendations vary across free listings unit categories . For example, the “In stores nearby” unit primarily benefits stores with physical locations and integrated local inventory feeds.

For the query “Adidas” in Melbourne, Australia, the “In stores nearby” unit appears as the first grid result, pushing Adidas Australia URLs further down the page.

Adidas struggles to rank at the top of the retailer comparison view due to the integration of in-store and online stock. Despite being closer geographically and offering lower prices, Adidas Australia cannot surpass competitors like Rebel Sport without integrating a local inventory feed in the region.

This issue highlights the importance of aligning online and offline strategies. Retailers must ensure their local inventory feeds are accurate and up-to-date to compete effectively in organic shopping results.

Dig deeper: Branded search and SEO: What you need to know

3. Influence of the ‘Top Quality Store’ Badge

We consistently emphasize to clients the importance of achieving the “Top Quality Store” badge for organic shopping success. While the rating system applies globally, the badge currently appears only in specific regions like the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.

The Page quality report in GMC Next provides detailed insights, comparing your store to others in similar categories based on key factors:

• Shipping experience: Delivery time and cost.
• Return experience: Return window and cost.
• Browsing experience: High-res images, image count per product, and website speed (referencing Core Web Vitals).
• Purchase experience: Promotion disapproval rates and accepted e-wallet types.
• Store rating: Overall rating and review count.

Achieving the “Top Quality Store ” badge is realistic if you understand the reports and address gaps effectively. Retailers should prioritize areas where they lag behind competitors, such as improving website speed or enhancing customer reviews.

For instance, optimizing Core Web Vitals can significantly boost the browsing experience score. Tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help identify specific improvements needed to meet these standards.

4. Managing Paid and Free Listing Feeds

A common question involves whether to maintain separate feeds for paid and free listings. Separate feeds could provide flexibility in serving content for ads versus free listings.

From our experience, keeping both in a single primary feed is advisable. We’ve yet to encounter a scenario where splitting the feeds makes sense. Changes benefiting free listings should also enhance ads, as they represent overall improvements rather than isolated “hacks.”

However, GMC Next allows applying specific features to certain surfaces. For instance, coupon code promotions can target only free listings if appropriate.

Here’s an example of a primary feed with all surfaces (referred to as marketing methods) applied:

Product Feed live details

Note: If an account faces policy issues preventing ads from showing, submitting a separate feed solely for free listings may not resolve the issue. Flags on accounts often affect both ads and free listings.

Additionally, anecdotal evidence suggests running Shopping ads in some capacity may boost free listings performance.

5. Challenges with Free Local Listings

Integrating a local inventory feed for online stores with physical locations is one of the most complex aspects of free listings. This feature, known as a free local listing, ties directly to the Adidas example discussed earlier.

To qualify for this surface, numerous layers of complexity must be managed effectively. Stores require precise local inventory management processes and intricate technical implementations across multiple tools.

For instance, a client of ours—a large e-commerce store —used a feed management system. Surprisingly, no other clients of the feed management system had ever requested local inventory management support, making us the first to push for this capability.

Although the client already had the correct setup for product detail pages (PDP) with in-store product search functions, it took months for the feed management tool to provide the necessary support. This became a significant roadblock, as switching to a new provider wasn’t feasible due to existing integrations.

Enabling the system simply required activating free local listings in GMC Next and setting up a separate primary product feed for the additional dataset.

Dig deeper: Google Merchant Center adds AI-powered product filtering

6. Exclusions Due to Restricted Purchases

Certain stores are ineligible for Shopping ads or free listings based on how product pricing is displayed on product detail pages and how the checkout process functions.

The challenge lies in Google’s minimal communication regarding these exclusions. Even when the dashboard appears issue-free, a site-wide exclusion may have occurred.

According to Google’s restricted purchase documentation , several reasons could lead to restricted purchase issues:

• Purchases limited to businesses rather than individuals.
• Business information required during checkout.
• Content or purchases unavailable based on customer location.

If your store exhibits any of these issues upon independent assessment, it could explain the inability to rank within free listings.

From our experience, if an e-commerce store is deemed ineligible in GMC Next , overcoming this hurdle becomes an uphill battle for SEO efforts.

Similarly, we’ve encountered account-wide exclusions for stores offering rental products instead of direct purchases. Larger businesses may face less scrutiny, allowing smaller enterprises to sometimes bypass these guidelines.

7. Implications of Auction-Based Pricing

Stores with auction-based models, where users bid to purchase items rather than buying at a set price, can encounter challenges similar to those of restricted purchase issues.

This introduces complexity into the product feed setup, as Google lacks reliable attributes to reference within free listing results.

While omitting this information might not result in exclusion, it could subtly reduce the visibility of such products in free listings.

This scenario is relatively rare compared to the other examples in this article. However, it occasionally arises with large sites using auction-based product models, making it challenging to maximize free listing visibility.

8. Ranking Principles in AI Mode

When aiming to rank products within Google’s AI Mode free listings, the same eligibility principles that apply to standard free listings also apply here.

The key distinction is that AI Mode recommends products for more complex queries by pulling data from multiple sources (with citations) via Google’s Shopping Graph.

These results are less consistent and differ noticeably from traditional search outcomes.

Since AI Mode officially launched outside of the closed beta on June 13, 2025, free listings traffic now appears in Google Search Console’s performance reporting under the Merchant listings filter.

It’s currently impossible to differentiate this traffic from other free listings traffic.

Dig deeper: Shopping graph optimization: The future of e-commerce SEO

Organic Shopping Is Gaining Importance

For e-commerce stores, organic shopping is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly vital, especially with the rise of AI-driven experiences.

It’s also a component of e-commerce SEO that requires specialized expertise due to its complexity.

The primary motivation should be the substantial revenue potential, which can grow significantly over time.

Consider these organic shopping insights when working on the free listings surface to accelerate your understanding.

We’ll continue testing in this area and sharing our findings to help navigate this evolving field.