Google has rolled out changes to its online search results in Europe to comply with requirements from EU competition authorities. The company is convinced these measures reduce service quality and raise costs for European businesses. According to Google, this represents the biggest quality decline in the search engine's 29-year history.
Two views on the same change
The European Commission frames the adjustments as a way to create a level playing field for how businesses are displayed on Google. From Google's perspective, though, the changes favor price comparison services like Expedia or Booking.com in sectors such as hotels, airlines, and restaurants. These comparison services, the company argues, get more visibility in search results than individual businesses in those industries, which are listed only with links to their websites, phone numbers, and addresses.
How the search layout changes
For searches related to hotels, flights, and restaurants, the new results place a specialized search engine at the top of the page, followed by two more services with less detail, plus a carousel of further offers from the same industry. Key features like real-time pricing have been removed from this layout, while Google's algorithm still determines the ranking order.
According to Google, tests with millions of users in Europe showed high dissatisfaction, since queries had to be re-entered. The company also says earlier adjustments under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) led to a 30 percent drop in free, direct booking traffic to European businesses, though Google didn't provide evidence or raw data for that figure. The company expects the new changes to further hurt those businesses. Users outside the EU aren't affected by the adjustments.
Already facing steep antitrust fines
In July, the European Commission fined Google 460 million euros for favoring its own services in shopping, hotels, transport, and sports. Fines of up to 5 percent of global annual revenue also loomed if the DMA requirements weren't implemented within 60 days. A further fine of 430 million euros was issued in July over restrictions on the Google Play Store. Over nearly two decades of disputes with EU competition authorities, Google has accumulated a total of 10.38 billion euros in antitrust fines.