Google says its ‘blue links’ search test in the EU did more harm than good

Summary

Google temporarily removed advanced hotel features from searches in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia, showing only links.
The company says users were less satisfied by this change, and it took them longer to find hotels.
The test resulted in over a 10% traffic drop for hotels, impacting hundreds of thousands across Europe, while comparison sites saw little to no benefit.

Google isn’t a fan of the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA), which forces it to avoid prioritizing its own services on Search over rival comparison sites. The company has consistently argued that the law degrades the quality of search results for local users. To make its case, Google ran a test in some EU countries, removing map strips, curated hotel results, hotel property info, and other details from Search, leaving only blue links. The test is now over, and Google admits that removing these visually rich features didn’t really help anyone.

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Over the past year, Google claims to have made over 20 changes to Search to level the playing field for competitors, such as online travel aggregators and comparison sites. Last month, it announced additional updates to further support these sites, but some argue the changes still don’t go far enough. According to Google, these sites want it to remove anything more advanced than a simple blue link to a website, so it did just that. In a temporary test, Google removed advanced hotel features from searches in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia, showing only links to individual websites.

Google shared the results of the test on Thursday, saying people were less happy with their search experience. It took them longer to find hotels, often needing more searches, and many gave up without finding what they wanted (via TechCrunch). Overall, traffic to hotels and comparison sites dropped, with hotels taking the biggest hit — losing over 10% of traffic, which affected hundreds of thousands of European hotels. Meanwhile, traffic to comparison sites, which were supposed to benefit from the change, pretty much stayed the same.

Google Pixel 9 laying on a striped blanket with screen on focused on search bar

Google believes DMA is harming European consumers

This latest test is likely to influence public opinion on the DMA, something Google has been trying to do ever since the law was passed. Now, the search giant has data to support its claims that the DMA is actually hurting European consumers. The EU will need to figure out how to enforce the DMA on such a dominant search tool without creating friction or unintended negative effects for European consumers and businesses.