Europe’s DMA Is Reshaping Google’s Search Results — And Click Patterns Are Shifting

If you think Google’s search results look the same everywhere, you’re wrong.

In parts of Europe, the search results page is being redesigned by regulators — and the changes are already affecting click behavior.

The Digital Markets Act is rewriting the rules.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) forces Google to give rival vertical search services — think hotel booking sites, restaurant reviewers, and price comparison tools — more prominent placement on the results page. The logic: Google shouldn’t be able to favor its own products over competitors in search results.

This isn’t theoretical. It’s already happening.

In a test across Germany, Belgium, and Estonia, Google removed its own hotel booking features from search results and replaced them with standard blue links to rival services. The result? Businesses that had relied on Google’s built-in hotel features reported a 30% drop in free direct booking clicks.

Read that again. The SERP layout changed, and click-through rates shifted by 30%.

This is a live experiment in how SERP design drives clicks.

The DMA compliance tests are essentially A/B tests at a national scale. When Google removes its own rich features and replaces them with blue links, users click differently. When new competitors get prominent SERP placement, the click distribution changes.

The EU Commission isn’t done either. In January 2026, it opened new proceedings against Google, arguing that current DMA compliance efforts still fall short. Google faces fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenue for non-compliance. That’s a strong incentive to keep making changes.

Why this matters outside Europe.

You might be thinking: I don’t operate in the EU, so this doesn’t apply to me. Maybe not directly. But consider what these changes demonstrate.

SERP layout is one of the most powerful determinants of where clicks go. When Google adds a featured snippet, clicks shift to position zero. When it adds an AI Overview, organic CTR drops 61%. When regulators force Google to remove its own features and show standard links instead, click patterns change by 30%.

The design of the results page controls the click distribution. Full stop.

The takeaway for CTR.

Whether you’re affected by the DMA today or not, the principle is the same: the pages that earn clicks in any SERP layout are the ones that send strong engagement signals. Titles that earn attention. Listings that earn trust. Engagement patterns that tell Google’s systems this result is what users want.

SERP layouts will keep changing — through regulation, through Google’s own product decisions, through AI integration. The constant across all of those changes is that Google still tracks which results get clicked and which don’t. That signal doesn’t go away just because the page looks different.

The sites that consistently earn clicks, regardless of what the results page looks like, are the ones that hold their rankings.

SerpClix uses an army of over 400,000 real human clickers to boost your organic CTR. Get started with a free trial or log in to your dashboard to set up your next click order.

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