Earlier this month, Google announced new search features set to be released in the European Economic Area (EEA). These changes are part of Google’s efforts to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Significant changes and additions include:
- Rich carousel-style results for travel-related search terms, such as “hotels near me”.
- “Aggregator units” that display links to major aggregator websites relevant to the user’s search.
- Refinement chips that allow users to filter search results more precisely.
- Enhancements to improve the visibility of airline websites for flight-related search terms.
Compliance with the Digital Markets Act
The Digital Markets Act focuses on creating a fairer business environment for competition. This will involve changes to search results pages, ultimately affecting organic traffic from EEA countries, particularly for travel, local services, and shopping-related search terms.
By introducing more rich carousel-style results, Google will enhance the visibility of specific search results, thereby improving user engagement with interactive elements such as prices, ratings, and images.
Websites incorporating structured data markup for carousels may have a chance to improve visibility in search results for specific keywords, potentially leading to increased organic traffic.
Our Recommendations
We recommend analyzing search results pages and keyword rankings to fully understand the impact of Google’s new search features on your site. Additionally, to stay competitive, consider adding carousel structured data markup to help improve keyword visibility in search results.
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