Google recently shared updates about the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and how they’ll impact search results in European Economic Area (EEA) countries. Below is a list of some of the changes that you can expect:
A more enhanced search experience
When users in EEA countries search for things like “restaurants near me,” they’ll see more visually appealing and informative results. These updates aim to provide users with more vivid and more relevant information. Aside from that, the other important aim is to increase the visibility of different players in the ecosystem (like aggregators, suppliers, and businesses) on search result pages.
Carousel Results
For travel, local, and shopping queries, Google are now introducing carousel rich results. These display structured data from web pages (including price, ratings, and images). Users can scroll horizontally to view more results from a particular site. If a page doesn’t have structured data, it’ll show the standard text result.
Carousel rich results for shopping queries are initially being tested in Germany, France, Czech Republic, and the UK.
Aggregator Units and Refinement Chips
Google are rolling out dedicated aggregator units that link to aggregator sites from the web. These units help users easily find top aggregator results for their queries. Refinement chips, like “Places sites,” allow users to focus on aggregator text results. Publishers don’t need to add any markup to be eligible for these units or chips. The types of units will include ‘places sites’, ‘job sites’, ‘travel sites’ and ‘product sites’ (initially being tested in the previously mentioned countries).
“Refinement chips” like “Places sites” are tools that help users narrow down their search results on aggregator websites. They allow users to focus specifically on text-based results from aggregators. Users can activate these refinement chips either at the top of the search results page or by clicking on “More sites” within the new aggregator units.
For flight queries, Google are introducing a new unit dedicated to airline websites to once again enhance the search experience.
The recent update from Google to Improve the visibility of ecosystem participants (aggregators, suppliers, and businesses) on the search results page should provide an opportunity for brands to grow within certain online spaces such as the hotel sector which has been dominated by Google properties.
A key learning for brands will be understanding what percentage of their keyword set are impacted by the changes and what impact this then has on click through rates from search engine results pages. By tracking this data and having a benchmark it can give you an unfair competitive advantage over your competitors when it comes to know which keywords to optimise for.
