You might think that Google gives you the best answers from across the web when you search for something as important as a pediatrician in Munich, a bicycle repair shop in Copenhagen, or a hotel in Madrid. But Google doesn’t actually use its normal organic search algorithm to produce the responses to this question that you see prominently on the first screen. Instead, it promotes a more limited set of results drawn from Google+ ahead of the more relevant ones you would get from using Google's organic search algorithm.

The European Commission is weighing its options to ensure that consumers searching using Google can access all websites, not just content powered by Google+. We think the best way to do that is using Google’s own organic search algorithm to identify the most relevant results — regardless of their source — from across the web.

We built a tool to demonstrate how easy it is to make this happen. We’ve even tested its results with thousands of users to show that consumers prefer results that aren’t exclusively powered by Google+. Rather, they prefer to get the most relevant results. All of the information in this demonstration comes from Google itself, and the ranking decisions are made by Google's own algorithms, followed by a basic sort according to average rating and review quantity.

As the European Commission considers how best to address its anticompetitive concerns with Google, we offer this tool, Focus on the User – Local, as a potential framework for ensuring that consumer welfare is maximised.

A recent study confirmed something that seems fairly obvious: businesses appearing in Google results with a high average rating and a large quantity of reviews receive more click-thru traffic than those with a lower rating and fewer reviews.

If you perform a local search on Google today, a significant portion of the page is dedicated to results powered only by Google+ Local. This so-called “map pack” combines ratings and reviews from Google+, but not from across the whole web. While the map (objective information) is helpful, having the review and rating (subjective information) content exclusively provided by Google+ raises the critical question being examined by the European Commission:

Are consumers better off when Google powers local results with Google+ instead of relying on the entire web?

We wanted to test this, so we created software to demonstrate it is possible to produce a “map pack” powered by Google’s relevance algorithm instead of Google+. We call it Focus On The User – Local (FOTUL). We then created a simulation to study how users reacted to FOTUL screens compared to Google+ screens. In experiment after experiment, users on average preferred “map packs” filled with organic results; clicks within the “map pack” increased by 23% compared to those filled by Google+.

Not only is it possible to use the relevance algorithm to power local search – consumers prefer it.

Google+ Local and the European Commission

European competition laws prohibit companies with a dominant market position from engaging in anti-competitive conduct that excludes competitors from the market (conduct that reduces consumer welfare).

In late 2010, the Directorate-General for Competition (DG-COMP) announced it was opening an investigation into potential antitrust violations by Google related to its search business. The announcement began as a largely closed-door investigation into Google’s business practices.

Former Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia examined three separate proposals by Google to settle, but all had the same fundamental flaw: ad-like links to three rivals designed and positioned such that they rarely receive any clicks. However, accepting such a “concession” would have effectively licensed the aggressive promotion of Google+ powered local services, leading to consumers being deprived of more helpful information sourced by the full World Wide Web. Almunia's term ended in late 2014 and he was replaced by Danish political Margarethe Vestager.

On April 15, 2015, Commissioner Margarethe Vestager announced a formal Statement of Objections against Google related to its treatment of the comparison shopping vertical. As such, Focus on the User is offered as a constructive, consumer-welfare-maximising framework for consumers and policy makers to consider.

In the battle between Google+ and Google’s relevance algorithm, Google+ is winning.

Consumers and European innovators are losing

In addition to harming consumers directly through the relevance of the search results produced, Google’s behavior harms them indirectly through its impact on startups and innovation in Europe. Many startups rely on traffic by the dominant search provider for initial exposure and traction with users. The way results are positioned within the first page of search results (which fewer than 5% of users click beyond) is a zero sum game: as Google+ is given more prominence on the page, an entire ecosystem of third party content is left competing for ever fewer slots filled by Google’s algorithm. Unfortunately, Google’s settlement proposals to date have not meaningfully addressed these problems.

The code is open-sourced on GitHub so that anyone can see how it works or make it even better. Click here to add Focus on the User - Local as a Chrome extension.

How Focus on the User – Local works.
When you search for “hotel berlin” today, Google.co.uk injects a map on the right side of the screen showing locations of Berlin hotels. Having a map appear for local searches makes sense. But rather than connecting the map pins to HolidayCheck, a leading hotel review provider founded in Germany, the map is hard-coded to Google+’s review ecosystem. This clearly doesn’t produce the most relevant results, as HolidayCheck almost always ranks higher than Google+ content according to Google’s own relevance ranker. You can see this for yourself by trying a simple test. Perform a search on Google for [hotel berlin (site:holidaycheck.de OR site:plus.google.com)]. Limiting the search to only these two review ecosystems makes it possible to see how they rank comparatively according to Google’s own relevance-based general search algorithm.

The results are rather shocking: for that query, Google’s general search algorithm thinks HolidayCheck has over 370 results that are more relevant than the most relevant result from Google+. But Google still gives Google+ preferential placement in search results.

But Focus on the User – Local doesn’t just compare HolidayCheck and Google+ — it incorporates dozens of additional local review websites to find the most relevant results according to Google’s algorithm. From those top results, it takes the top seven most highly reviewed and highly rated results and replaces the Google+ information with the information selected for relevance by Google’s general search algorithm.

For more info read our FAQ, watch the video, or read the code.

It’s Google’s website. Shouldn’t Google be allowed to do whatever it wants?

Most of the time yes, but not if Google is acting anti-competitively by abusing its dominant position in organic search to tie its vertical search products, depriving consumers of relevant results, stifling competition and impairing innovation. Consumers need to be able to access competitive sources of information from across the web; by tying its own vertical search products to organic search results, Google prevents this.

Why should consumers care?
Consumers are currently getting the information that best helps Google, not the information that best helps the consumer.

For example, when a user searches for a pediatrician in Munich, Google promotes a limited set of results from Google+. Unfortunately, these results aren’t particularly helpful for consumers, even as judged by Google’s own search algorithm. We can test this hypothesis by modifying the search to insist that Google apply the same standards to Google+ as it applies to a competing website like Jameda.de: [pediatrician munich germany (site:plus.google.com OR site:jameda.de)]. By Google’s own admission, there are no relevant results from Google+ on any of the first several pages for this equalised search.

We’ve studied the impact on consumers extensively. In search simulation tests involving thousands of users, we compared consumer reaction to Google’s anti-competitive search results against the pro-competitive results powered by Focus on the User - Local (FOTUL). We found a 44% increase in click engagement inside answerbox regions for results powered by FOTUL.

Google has all the tools at its disposal to create the same FOTUL experience for the benefit of consumers, but its current plan is to continue to promote less beneficial results from Google+ that only help Google.

Isn’t competition “only one click away”?
Google has an overwhelming and very durable share of the European organic search market. This market share has an important effect on conditioning user behavior, masking alternative sources of information, and raising the costs (e.g., time and effort) to switch to other sources of information.

Using a search engine might be simple. But running a search engine is highly complex and offers many dials and levers that impact user behavior. A company like Google knows that it can degrade quality to a certain point before consumers leave in droves. Google has made an art of predicting user behavior and knowing how much change users will tolerate before switching to another organic search service.

I’ve read that Google+ was a failure. Is this even still relevant?
Google+ is still being used to unify and draw data from different Google products. Indeed, Google continues to build products for local businesses under the “Google+” brand.

Does Focus on the User redirect traffic from business websites to review websites?
No, Focus on the User demonstrates that Google's organic algorithm is capable of producing better unbiased results for consumers instead of relying on Google+ and shifts the discussion away from "rival links" toward meritocracy. The goal here is true meritocracy in the process that generated what are supposed to be genuinely organic search results, without the "deck of cards" being stacked one way or another. Once the box is filled meritocratically, we have no issue with allowing the primary link to link directly to the local business's URL, so long as the site powering the fill is also only one click away, though that is not currently a feature in this proof of concept. Note, the "fill" produced by the widget is anchored around content which Google's organic algorithm deems relevant and is highly reviewed; address, photos, and other elements of the local card are not modified by the widget as layering such elements into the widget can cause stability issues. Ultimately, Google is the best equipped to offer an experience powered by its own organic algorithms; instead, it chooses to hardwire Google+.

Isn't this going back to the days of scraping?
No. Scraping involved taking content from other companies and displaying it either as if it were Google's own or in an interstitial page where the source content received no click. Those behind Focus on the User believe answer boxes triggered by queries involving non-fact-based information should be powered by the organic algorithm and provide a single conspicuous click directly to the source content.

Google has claimed local search companies like Yelp "object to [Google] providing direct answers to users' questions." Is this true?
No, a claim that we object to user’s questions being answered is incorrect, misleading, and disingenuous, as FOTUL explicitly preserves the user interface of Google's current local answers format. What we object to is Google+ being used to attempt to provide answers to users' questions without having to be vetted by the organic algorithm in the same ways that other search results are required to, and then Google preferencing Google+ over the results Google’s own unbiased algorithm indicates provide the best answers to the users’ questions.

What if Google decides to abandon the 7-pack/3-pack? Won't this solution be obsolete?
On the contrary, while the demo software would not work for a carousel result, the principle -- power non-fact-based-queries with the organic algorithm and a conspicuous and direct link to the source content -- can be applied to a carousel, an Android-powered watch, the dashboard of a self-driving car you've just instructed to take you to a highly rated Italian restaurant, etc. In other words, the principle can be defined but ensure Google is not prohibited from introducing new innovations while ensuring consumer welfare is protected.

What is going on right now with the European Commission?
The European Commission is looking for a meaningful solution that would remedy Google’s anti-competitive conduct. DG Competition has carefully considered and rejected three separate proposals by Google and filed a formal Statement of Objections in the comparison shopping vertical.

Who created this?
A few engineers at Yelp and TripAdvisor, in consultation with several consumer advocacy organisations, built this proof of concept.

The code is open-sourced on GitHub so that anyone can see how it works or make it even better.

What would be an appropriate settlement or outcome?
An appropriate settlement would be one that maximises consumer welfare and protects innovation, rather than just "appeasing" competitors with links that very few will ever click on (which would basically be the effect of Google’s proposals to date). The good news is that such a solution is possible, simple and within sight -- use Google's own general search algorithm to show consumers the best results sourced from the whole web and not just Google+.



Some engineers at Yelp and TripAdvisor built the Focus on the User - Local widget as a side project. This website is a collaboration among local search companies designed to educate consumers and policy makers about consumer harm brought about when Google+ is artificially promoted in local search.

Consumer Watchdog and Fight for the Future endorse the Focus on the User project as an important way to educate consumers and policymakers about Google’s search practices.