Google is currently testing a new search result design for flights, trains, hotels, restaurants, and groceries in the EU, which was supposed to give smaller businesses more traffic. Instead, the review site Yelp claims that the changes have had the opposite effect.
According to Yelp’s research, the new design delivers results by placing data from Google Maps at the top of the page below the search bar and below — a new widget and images and links to websites like Yelp. Experiments showed that nearly 73% of about 500 people clicked on the results, which left them in the Google ecosystem — up from 55% before the design update and tests with a smaller group of 250 people.
In another design variation, where the box with the review websites was placed at the top, only 44% of people stayed with Google, while the rest — chose an alternative. Yelp has already appealed to EU regulators with a proposal to stick with the second option — to get «fair results».
Meanwhile, Google spokesperson Rory O’Donoghue says that more than 20 changes made to the search engine in response to the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA)On the contrary, they provide more opportunities for services such as Yelp to be displayed in the results.
«To suggest otherwise is simply wrong», — he says.
According to O’Donoghue, testing of different Google designs showed that the number of clicks on review sites actually increased — and all at the cost of some airlines and restaurants seeing a drop in traffic.
Google’s other divisions that are subject to the law, such as Android, Chrome, and Maps, as well as other companies such as Apple, Meta, and Amazon, have yet to make public all of their compliance plans. But a coalition of thousands of smaller companies, including encryption software maker Proton and Norwegian media company Schibsted, argues that those disclosed so far do not actually comply with the DMA.
Source: Ars Technica