In the EU, Google is now showing alternate directory sources above the map in its search results page to comply with antitrust decision in shopping search
Branded directory buttons are being displayed above the map. — In April 2019, Google was experimenting with a new local SERP …
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2020 tweak — branded directory buttons placed above the map in EU local results — was Google's first visible answer to the shopping-search antitrust decision, and it established the playbook Brussels has forced Google to repeat ever since. Each subsequent remedy has moved rivals' vertical services higher up the page: a dedicated comparison-links unit proposed under the DMA in early 2024, then a ranked competitor price-comparison box at the top of results floated in mid-2025.
By 2026 the pattern had escalated from cosmetic buttons to structural change, with reports that Google would test displaying competing vertical search services directly alongside its own results in Europe to avoid fines. The directory-button experiment matters because it is the earliest data point in that arc — evidence that Google treats rival-prominence remedies as iterative SERP redesigns rather than one-off concessions.
First-order effects
- EU users searching locally now see branded directory buttons above the map, giving those directory services prominent placement they did not have to buy or rank for.
- Google absorbs the traffic cost of the remedy in the affected vertical rather than contesting the antitrust decision further.
Second-order effects
- Rival directory and comparison services gain a free acquisition channel inside Google's own results page, shifting their economics away from paid search dependence.
- Each accepted remedy lowers the bar for the next: once Google concedes above-the-map placement, proposals like the DMA-era comparison boxes face less resistance as precedents.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, EU regulators function as de facto designers of Google's results page, with remedy formats — buttons, link units, ranked boxes, side-by-side verticals — compounding into a structurally different European SERP than the rest of the world sees.
- Vertical search competitors' viability in Europe increasingly depends on regulatory mandates for placement rather than organic ranking, changing what competition in search means.
The trend: EU antitrust pressure is progressively converting Google's search results page from a single ranked list into a mandated marketplace where rival vertical services hold guaranteed placements.