Google is proposing further changes to its search services in Europe in an attempt to comply with the requirements of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a regulatory framework aimed at ensuring fair competition in Europe's digital market.

The new changes would include "expanded and equally formatted units that allow users to choose between results that take them to comparison sites and results that take them directly to supplier websites when they are searching for products, restaurants, flights or hotels"; "other new formats that allow comparison sites and suppliers to show more information about what is on their websites, like prices and pictures"; and "new ad units for comparison sites".

It would add to the numerous changes implemented by Google in the past year to meet the DMA's requirements, including significant redesigns of certain features and the complete removal of others.

"The Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires substantial changes to the services Google can provide in Europe. Over the past year, we have made many changes to comply, including significantly redesigning certain features and completely removing others in Europe," said Google's director of legal, Oliver Bethell.

These changes include more than 20 modifications to Google Search, such as the introduction of dedicated units and formats to boost the prominence of comparison sites for free in categories like flights, hotels, and shopping. Google has also removed features from the search results page, including those that show flight information, and reduced functionality for some of its clickable maps.

Google argues that the changes have negatively impacted the experience of European users and resulted in a decrease in traffic for airlines, hotel operators, and small retailers - which have reported up to 30 per cent declines in free direct booking clicks since the changes were implemented.

Now, as comparison sites push for the changes to go further, Google is calling for balance in the requests of users and businesses and the requirements of the DMA.

"Over the past three years we have engaged extensively with the European Commission and industry, including hosting more than 100 conferences and roundtables to seek feedback on these and other DMA changes. We acknowledge that the DMA requires some significant changes to our online services in Europe - but we do not believe that the end goal is to prevent search engines from innovating and competing," said Bethell.

"While many stakeholders are happy with our changes, a few sites continue to demand more, such as a complete ban on anything that's more sophisticated than a simple blue link to a website. This would prevent Google from showing people useful information like prices and ratings."

To understand how such changes would impact both the user experience and traffic to websites, Google plans to run a short test to remove some hotel features from Google Search for users in Germany, Belgium, and Estonia.

"The test will remove some of the features that have been at the focus of the debate, including the map that shows where hotels are and hotel results underneath it. Instead, we will show a list of individual links to websites without any of the additional features - similar to our old "ten blue links" format from years ago. Results will return to normal once the test ends," said Bethell.

"We're very reluctant to take this step, as removing helpful features does not benefit consumers or businesses in Europe. That's why we have committed so much product and engineering time to constructive discussion informed by objective data. We think the latest proposal is the right way to balance the difficult trade-offs that the DMA involves. We still hope to be able to reach a solution that complies with the law and continues to provide European users and businesses with access to helpful technology."