Google on Tuesday rolled out changes to its search results across Europe to comply with EU antitrust rules, a move the company itself says will degrade users’ experience and raise costs for European businesses, according to the Reuters report that broke the story. A Google official told Reuters the changes mark “the largest reduction in quality of service at the world’s most popular internet search engine in its 29-year search history.” Nick Fox, Google’s senior vice-president for knowledge and information, told Reuters: “To comply with DMA requirements, we’re making significant changes to Search in Europe.”
What changed in Google Search results in Europe under the DMA?
One specialised vertical search service, the kind of site Reuters names as Expedia or Booking.com, now appears highlighted at the top of the results page, with two more vertical services shown below it in less detail. Beneath those sits a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants that, per Reuters, now show up “with just a link to their websites, telephone numbers and address,” with real-time prices stripped out. Ordering inside the units is set by Google’s algorithm, per Reuters.
The Carousel Loses Its Prices
Fox framed the change as a downgrade, not a fix: “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.” Google’s account, as relayed by Reuters, is that the EU presents the redesign as levelling the field while the effect runs the other way: the changes favour the vertical search services named above, not the hotels, airlines and restaurants whose carousel listings just lost their real-time prices. Where a price now appears on the page, if anywhere, is something the Reuters report does not describe.
Google’s Own Numbers, Not an Independent Count
Google has quantified this fight before. In a blog post from 26 November 2024, the company wrote that “free direct booking clicks are down as much as 30% since we implemented our original changes,” and it gave Reuters the same 30% figure this week, saying the latest changes are expected to hit the same businesses. Google also told Reuters it tested the new layout with millions of users in Europe and saw a high level of dissatisfaction, with people having to retype queries to find what they wanted. Neither figure comes from an outside measurement; the report carries no independent count and no reaction from Booking.com, Expedia or any hotel or airline group.
| Unit | Position | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Top vertical search service | Highlighted at the top | One service, of the kind Reuters names as Expedia or Booking.com |
| Two more vertical search services | Below the top slot | Fewer details |
| Hotel, airline and restaurant carousel | Below the vertical services | Link to the business site, phone number and address; no real-time prices |
Ordering inside these units, per Reuters, is set by Google’s algorithm. Layout as described by Reuters on 8 September.
A €460 Million Fine and a Clock Already Running
The rollout follows a European Commission decision of 23 July that fined Google €460 million of a combined €890 million penalty, over what the Commission found was preferential treatment of Google’s own services in “shopping, hotels, transport and sports results.” The Commission’s search-side order requires Google to “treat third-party services that feature on Google’s search results in a fair and non-discriminatory manner by reference to its own services.” Google must comply within 60 days, “otherwise it risks periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its total worldwide turnover,” the Commission said, putting compliance sometime in the second half of September. The rollout came six days after a US court rejected a breakup of Google’s ad tech business and accepted behavioural fixes instead, on 2 September.
The Second Split by Location in Ten Days
This is not the first change this fortnight to make a Google result depend on where the searcher is. From 30 August, Google’s site reputation manual actions stopped applying to searchers in the European Economic Area while continuing to apply everywhere else. Today’s layout is the second time in under two weeks that the same query returns a differently built page inside Europe and outside it. The EU’s pressure on search runs on more than one law: the Commission’s designation of ChatGPT as a very large online search engine on 31 August came under the Digital Services Act, not the DMA.
What to Measure Before the Outrage Fades
For a site owner inside the EU, 8 September is best treated as an annotation date in analytics, not a verdict. Filter Search Console by country, group the EU markets yourself, and compare them against the rest. The sectors Reuters names, hotels, airlines and restaurants, are where the new units appear, so the queries that map to those sectors are the ones to watch. Read clicks and click-through rate alongside impressions; impressions alone will not tell you whether a unit was reshaped. Then check what the top vertical search service shows for your own property: prices are gone from Google’s carousel, and that listing now sits above yours on the page.
