By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A return to the format of 10 blue links in search results from years ago could reduce user traffic to hotels, Google said on Thursday, as it seeks to balance demands from price comparison websites and hotels in trying to comply with EU tech rules.
The Alphabet unit has announced a series of changes in search result formats in recent months to address conflicting demands from price-comparison sites, hotels, airlines and small retailers. It is trying to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which prohibits it from favouring its own products and services on its platform.
Last month it tested its old format of 10 blue links per page in Germany, Belgium and Estonia, an option which it said it may have to choose if it cannot agree with its rivals.
Google said the test, which finished this week, showed that the old format was bad for both users and hotels.
“People were measurably less satisfied with their search results and it took them longer to find hotels, including by having to do more searches. More people also gave up and did not find what they were looking for,” Oliver Bethell, Director, Competition Legal said in a statement.
“Overall, traffic to hotels and intermediary sites went down. Hotels lost the most traffic (more than 10%), affecting hundreds of thousands of European hotels. Traffic to intermediary sites largely stayed flat,” he said.
The company will now seek feedback from the European Commission on finding a solution.
Google’s announcement came a day after more than 20 price comparison websites criticised its latest proposal, saying it has ignored their feedback and that EU antitrust regulators should charge the company for not complying with the DMA.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
