In the coming weeks, Europeans who browse Google may notice a subtle shift in their search outcomes. Google recently disclosed its plans to adapt to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a novel regulation. This means users in Europe can expect to see additional comparison sites within their search results. As well as this, vertical search units, like Google Flights, will no longer show up in the main search results.
Refinement Chips
As well as this Google is incorporating refinement chips enabling users to streamline their search results according to distinct content categories.
These refinement chips encompass an array of aggregator units such as:
- Places sites
- Jobs sites
- Flight sites
- Product sites
What Google has said
Google release the following statement:
“Over the coming weeks in Europe, we will be expanding our testing of a number of changes to the search results page. We will introduce dedicated units that include a group of links to comparison sites from across the web, and query shortcuts at the top of the search page to help people refine their search, including by focusing results just on comparison sites. For categories like hotels, we will also start testing a dedicated space for comparison sites and direct suppliers to show more detailed individual results including images, star ratings and more. These changes will result in the removal of some features from the search page, such as the Google Flights unit.”
