Google has shipped a redesigned Search results page across the European Economic Area, and it changes who gets real estate on commercial queries.
The company published Search Central documentation on September 8 covering two new result units: one for aggregators, one for direct suppliers. Reuters reported the rollout the same day.
What actually changed
Two new blocks now appear on certain commercial searches in the EEA.
The aggregator unit covers hotel, flight, long-distance train or bus, and product queries. It’s open to vertical search services, which Google’s page defines as including online travel agencies, comparison shopping services, metasearch engines and directories.
Inside the unit, approved aggregators return results for the query. The top-ranked provider is expanded by default with photos, prices or ratings where those are available. Clicks go through to that aggregator’s own site. Users can toggle to another participating aggregator, and only one aggregator unit shows at a time.
The supplier unit is for the businesses themselves: individual hotels, airlines and similar direct providers. Crucially, it only appears when the aggregator unit appears.
Reuters described the layout slightly differently: one specialised search service at the top, two more with fewer details, then a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants below with real-time prices stripped out. Restaurants show up in that description but not in Google’s own list of supported query types.
Who has to do work to show up
This is the part that matters operationally.
- Aggregators: must be approved as a vertical search service and feed Google data via feeds or real-time APIs, depending on the vertical.
- Suppliers: don’t need to send anything beyond what Google can crawl, though Google says feeds can improve results.
- Everyone: Google’s algorithm still decides the ranking inside these units, per Reuters.
So aggregators get a bigger prize but have integration work to do. Suppliers get in for free but are dependent on an aggregator unit triggering in the first place.
The regulatory backdrop
This is Digital Markets Act compliance, not a product decision.
On July 23 the European Commission fined Google €460 million for giving its own shopping, hotel, transport and sports results more prominence than comparable third-party services, part of an €890 million package. Google was given 60 days to comply or face periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of worldwide turnover.
The Commission did note that the changes Google was already testing represented, in its words, “substantial progress towards compliance.” That 60-day window runs into late September, and the Commission has not said publicly whether it considers this design compliant.
Google is not happy about it
Nick Fox, Google’s SVP of knowledge and information, told Reuters the company is making “significant changes to Search in Europe” and said the redesign degrades the experience for European users by boosting intermediaries at the expense of local businesses.
Google went further, telling Reuters this is the largest reduction in quality of service in Search’s 29-year history. It also said testing with millions of European users showed high dissatisfaction because people had to retype queries. Reuters didn’t detail how that test was run.
Google also claims earlier DMA compliance changes cut free direct booking traffic to European businesses by 30%. That figure is Google’s own and refers to the earlier changes, not this rollout. Treat it as a vendor number, not an independent measurement.
What to do this week
If you run travel, transport or retail search in Europe, your baseline just moved.
Split your rank tracking by country. EEA results for these query types are now structurally different from US or UK results, so a blended global position number is actively misleading.
In Search Console, filter by the affected countries and the affected query classes, and mark September 8 as an annotation. You’ll want a clean before-and-after once you have three or four weeks of post-rollout data.
If you’re an aggregator, start the vertical search service approval process and scope the feed or API work now. Early participants will collect the default-expanded slot while competitors are still in procurement.
If you’re a direct supplier, audit what Google can crawl from your site — pricing, availability, structured data — because that’s what fills your unit. Then consider feeds.
One more thing to watch: a Google Actions Center page says the same two units are coming to dining, services and things-to-do searches. No launch date, and Search Central doesn’t list local queries yet. But local is clearly on the roadmap.
Source: Search Engine Journal
