Google has launched a number of new search experiences today to in “preparations for the Digital Markets Act (DMA)” the search company said. This includes new rich results, aggregator units, and refinement chips, plus new flight search results.
“With these new experiences, users in EEA countries searching for queries such as “hotels near me” may notice more visual and entity focused results. These experiences aim to (1) present users with rich and relevant information for their searches and (2) improve the visibility of ecosystem participants (aggregators, suppliers, and businesses) on the search results page,” Google wrote.
Carousel rich result for aggregators and suppliers. Google has launched new carousel rich result for aggregators and suppliers for travel, local, and shopping queries. These rich result tiles may contain price, rating, and images for entities on the page.
Here is what it looks like:
Google said, “If a web page doesn’t have structured data markup on the page, then the standard text result is shown.”
In terms of availability, Google said they can show for travel, local, and shopping queries. For shopping queries, carousel rich results are being tested first in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK.
Aggregator units and refinement chips. Google also has new aggregator units and refinement chips that allow users to easily see the top aggregator results for their respective query, Google explained. Users can also click on the “more sites” to see additional relevant aggregator sites for their query. Google has a number of units for this including:
- Places sites
- Jobs sites
- Flight sites
- Product sites (being tested first in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK)
Refinement chips. The refinement chips, for example “Places sites” can help users focus the Search page on aggregator text results, Google wrote. You can see these by looking at the top of the search results or by clicking on “More sites” on the new aggregator units.
Google said, “Publishers don’t need to add any markup in order to be eligible for aggregator units or refinement chips.”
We have some real life examples of this that we covered here a few weeks ago.
Flight results. Google also made changes to the flight results, as it documented, saying, “When you search for queries such as ‘flights to paris’ or ‘flights from berlin to paris’, you may notice more visual- and entity-focused results. This experience aims to present users with rich and relevant information, helping you find the best next step on your search journey.”
These include airline options, flight sites and new rich results for these regions. Here are screenshots:
Why we care. If you have websites that currently rank well for these types of queries in the European regions, then you probably should take a close look at how the search results may change with the new DMA changes. While change can be hard, it also serves as an opportunity for you to rank and get more traffic with these new search experiences.
