Google’s search chief is defending the removal of useful features from European Search, saying enforcement of the EU’s Digital Markets Act has left users with a worse product. The redesign gives comparison sites prominent results with photos, prices and ratings, while individual hotels and airlines get a separate placement that depends on the comparison-site unit appearing.
In a post accompanying his interview with Pietro Valetto, Nick Fox listed the loss of current product-price checks, direct links to Google Maps for directions and hotel filters for travel dates. He argued that the accumulated changes leave Europeans with a substantially worse Search experience than users elsewhere.
Comparison sites keep the richer listings
Google’s aggregator documentation describes a result unit for online travel agencies, comparison shopping services, metasearch engines and directories. The highest-ranked provider is expanded by default. For a hotel query, its listings can include pictures, prices and star ratings.
Clicks within that unit go directly to the aggregator’s website. Users can switch to another participating provider, but only one aggregator unit appears at a time.
For flight and transport searches, aggregators supply results through real-time APIs. Google also instructs participants to keep pricing and availability current. Prices therefore remain part of the documented European search experience, even as Google complains about features it has withdrawn.
Individual hotels and airlines have a supplier unit alongside it. Google says that placement appears only when the aggregator unit appears. Direct suppliers can qualify through information Google crawls from their websites; feeds can enhance their results.
Hotels still have to compete for the booking click
The design gives comparison platforms a chance to present a shortlist before the user leaves Google. For a hotel seeking direct bookings, a supplier link competes with that ready-made selection, and the dedicated supplier placement depends on the intermediary unit being shown.
That is a concrete difference in how businesses reach customers. It also explains why removing features from Google’s own travel experience need not remove prices or booking options from the page: participating intermediaries can supply them instead.
Fox’s criticism reflects Google’s position in a wider DMA dispute, which also includes sharing search data with competing engines. For travel businesses, the immediate question is how bookings divide between direct websites and intermediaries under the new layout. The documentation establishes the different placements; it supplies no booking or traffic results.
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