Google began rolling out redesigned Search results in the European Economic Area this week, saying the layout is required under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act. Search Engine Journal and The Next Web reported that the new results started appearing on Sept. 8, 2026, after Google published EEA documentation. Ars Technica said the changes were still rolling out and that Google had not given an exact finish date. Heise Online reported that the layout Google presented had not yet been fully implemented.
Nick Fox, Google’s senior vice president of knowledge and information, told Reuters the company is making “significant changes to Search in Europe” to meet DMA requirements. “These changes degrade the user experience for Europeans, boosting online intermediaries at the expense of local businesses and removing helpful features people rely on every day,” Fox said, according to Ars Technica. Separately, The Next Web reported that an unnamed Google official described the redesign as the largest quality reduction in Search’s 29-year history — that line is not on the record from Fox.
Reuters-based accounts describe travel searches that put a specialized search service at the top of the page, followed by two others with fewer details, then a carousel of hotels, airlines, or restaurants without real-time pricing or availability. Heise Online said Reuters cited Expedia and Booking.com as examples. Digital Watch Observatory reported Google’s view that those vertical search services receive more prominence than businesses shown only with a link, phone number, and address.
Google Search Central documentation published the same day, as described by Search Engine Journal, specifies an aggregator unit and a supplier unit for hotel, flight, long-distance train or bus, and product queries. The aggregator unit is open to vertical search services — online travel agencies, comparison shopping services, metasearch engines, and directories, Google’s page says. Search Engine Journal noted that restaurants appear in Reuters’ carousel description but not in Search Central’s list of supported queries.
Skift, citing Google, reported that the supplier unit has been restricted and that users in the European Union can no longer filter by travel dates, check live pricing, or use descriptive tags such as “budget” or “boutique” directly within the results.
Google has also pointed to earlier compliance changes as cutting free direct-booking traffic to European businesses, but it has not published the underlying data or comparison period, The Next Web noted — treat that traffic figure as Google’s unpublished claim, not an independently verified statistic.
The DMA is changing the live Google Search page Europeans see for hotels, flights, and other commercial queries. Google says comparison sites and other intermediaries gain prominence, local businesses lose direct traffic, and everyday features such as real-time prices disappear. Whether that is consumer harm or the cost of ending self-preferencing is the fight ahead — and the next tests are whether Brussels accepts this layout and whether hotels and airlines can measure the traffic shift on their own.