Reuters has a headline that reads Exclusive: Google to test changes to search results, source says as EU fine looms. This confuses me because I thought Google had been testing this for a couple of years now.
The article says, "The issue pits Google against vertical search services (VSS) linked to sectors such as hotels, airlines and restaurants or to companies in those sectors." "The previously unreported changes to its search results will show both VSS and Google results, with top-ranked vertical search engines displayed by default, the source said. Hotels, airlines, restaurants and transport services with real-time data from feeds will sit either below or above the list of vertical search engines."
It goes on to explain the "changes will soon be rolled out across Europe, initially focusing on searches for lodgings but later adding flights and other services, the source said without providing further details."
But again, we saw these before, no? These are those DMA chips, where Google shows vertical search services directly in the search results over the Digital Markets Act.
We've been seeing changes to the Google Search results in the European regions related to Digital Markets Act (DMA) comparison sites and hotels, etc. The Google Search team posted about how the search experiences are changing with new rich results, aggregator units, and refinement chips - most of what we covered already and it became official in February 2024. We saw more in November 2024, December 2024 and Google even told us the display of these are algorithmic.
So I am confused by this report, to be honest.
Forum discussion at X.
