Google has rolled out a set of changes to Search results across the European Union to comply with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, and the company is calling the update the biggest hit to Search quality in its 29-year history. The changes went live on September 8, and Google says they will not affect anyone searching from outside the EU.
What Changes in Google Search for EU Users
Under the new layout, rival vertical search services, think Expedia or Booking.com for travel, can now appear above Google’s own Flights and Hotels results. The revised page highlights one specialized search engine at the top, followed by two more with less detail. Below that sits a carousel of hotels, airlines, and restaurants, but with real-time prices stripped out. Google’s own algorithm still decides the ranking order.
The rollout is not finished everywhere. Some EU users, checked via VPN, were still seeing Google’s own travel results ranked first at the time of reporting, suggesting the change is being phased in rather than switched on all at once.
Google Calls It a Downgrade, But That’s Only Half the Story
In a statement to Reuters, Google did not hide its frustration with the mandate:
“These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans – boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses, and removing helpful features people rely on every day. Users outside the EU will not be impacted by these changes.”
That framing skips over why the European Commission forced the change in the first place. The EU has levied more than €890 million in fines against Google over this exact behavior, roughly €460 million for self-preferencing its own services in search results and around €430 million tied to how it steers developers away from alternative payment and app distribution options on the Play Store. Combined, that’s over $1 billion in penalties, and Google has 60 days to comply fully or file an appeal.
In plain terms, Google spent years placing its own Flights, Hotels, and Shopping results ahead of competitors in searches that used to send users straight to those rivals. Regulators decided that crowded out competition and raised prices for consumers who had no easy way to compare options elsewhere. Google’s own description of the fix as a “quality” loss is really a description of losing an advantage it wasn’t supposed to have in the first place. Whether the redesigned results are worse for a shopper trying to book a flight is a fair question, but it’s a different question from whether the old version was fair to the businesses it buried.
Who This Actually Affects
The change only applies inside the EU. If you’re searching from the US, India, or anywhere outside the bloc, your results stay the same for now. For EU users, the practical effect shows up mainly on travel and shopping searches, where a comparison carousel used to give quick access to Google’s own aggregated pricing and now routes through a mix of intermediary sites first.
Source: Reuters, via Android Authority
