Google removes one of the most useful functions from its results in Europe and already warns of the consequences

The Google search engine in Europe is going to change. And it’s going to make it worse. At least, that is what the company maintains, which is forced to introduce modifications to its main product due to the requirements of the European Commission. After a fine of 460 million euros for favoring its own services in the results, the company had 60 days to introduce the changes requested by the community regulator.

The result of all this mess are the new search results that will allow Google to comply with the DMA. What we will see will be a greater presence of specialized comparators, such as hotel or travel websites, and a lesser presence of information provided by the search engine itself.

In general, the results will presumably be more universal and less focused on Google services, although the company’s algorithm will still be responsible for deciding the order in which they are displayed. Obviously, Google did not like this and has already made it clear to Reuters that the one who is harmed is the user themselves, who will have a worse search experience.

What exactly changes in the search engine for European users

The origin of this dispute is none other than the omnipresence of Google in a multitude of Internet services. Google has the search engine, but also a flight comparator, Google Maps that gives hotel room prices, Shopping, which recommends products… We could even put Gemini in this bag, which benefits directly from the search engine’s AI mode. Of course, this makes it easier for the platform to stop being just a search engine and be capable of kidnapping the user for its own benefit. Wow, what we’ve always called a monopoly.

In light of this, the European Commission has asked Google to stop promoting its services and to diversify its recommendations, including third-party platforms. Therefore, one of the main changes that we should notice is that The search engine shows us results from specialized comparatorslike Booking or Expedia. Additionally, carousels dedicated to hotels, flights or restaurants will lose some features.

Google considers that the changes are bad for the user

Google’s defense of its model is the other point of view we must consider. According to the company, in previous modifications promoted by Commission regulators, Free traffic for European companies fell by 30%. Likewise, Google assures that it has tested the new modifications with millions of European users and that the results show a high level of dissatisfaction.

One of the problems that the company says it has detected is that users have to do more searches to get to the same place. This means having to reformulate the query several times until you get the desired result. Of course, all these statements come from the company itself, which is the main one interested in maintaining the status quo of the search engine.

What is a fact is that Google has been modifying its behavior for years in order to retain and prevent users from fleeing to other websites. And I’m sure you’re thinking about AI roundups, but these are just the company’s latest play. Historically, the search engine has included its own comparators, featured snippets, internal utilities and other retention mechanisms. It only remains to be seen if the impact of these changes is really that bad for the user and what real effect it has on the traffic that websites receive.