Google search results in Europe may start to look a little different in the coming weeks in order for Google to comply with a new regulation called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the company. announced. This means that Google will show more comparison sites in its search results for European users and that some of the vertical search units, such as Google Flights, will no longer appear in the main search results.
What Google said. Google explained these changes in its blog post:
Over the next few weeks in Europe, we’ll be expanding our testing of a number of changes to the search results page. We’ll be introducing dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from around the web and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, even by focusing results on just comparison sites For categories like hotels, we’ll also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results, including pictures, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit.
As it might seem. Last July, I found comparison site units in the search results; I covered them in the Round table of search engines.
Here is a screenshot of Kovi Twitter and Frank Sandtmann mastodon from a few months ago:
A bit of history. In 2020, Google tested a similar feature to list other local search engines; here is what it looked like.
In June 2017, the EC fined Google approximately $2.7 billion for alleged abuse of market position in vertical (shopping) search. Following that decision, which Google is currently appealing, Google implemented a series of changes to provide “equal treatment” to rival comparison shopping engines (CSEs) in Europe. In 2018, that group said it was only getting worse.
Why we care If you’re currently listed in some of those vertical search units that Google often shows at the top of the page, this can affect your traffic and metrics. This should only affect European search results right now. This may also mean that you need to focus on other search engine verticals, more than you do now.
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