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What Google’s remediation decision means

Judge Amit Mehta just ruled on Google’s antitrust case, which has been ongoing since October of 2020. Remediation is essentially what the court decided necessary to repair damages after finding Google to be an unlawful monopoly in trial back in 2024.

With this remediation comes key concessions that Google will have to make going forward, according to the DOJ. Google can’t package multiple apps/products as part of one payment offer nor can Google enforce its offers for longer than one year. Lastly, Google cannot force its partners to only distribute its products as part of a deal.

Then Google has issued an official response that focused on its concern with the imposed restrictions. Google also commented on not having to sell Chrome or Android, which many speculated could’ve happened after the DOJ directly asked.

While this remediation decision does restrict what Google can do to maintain dominance in relevant markets, critics have argued that the remediation doesn’t go far enough.

Google still has access to the same deals and can still use money to incentivize exclusivity without outright mentioning it in-contract. An official statement from the four Monopoly Busters Caucus Chairs notes that both Google Chrome and Android are powerful enough in their own right to help Google potentially maintain a monopoly.

Google retaining Chrome is also a blow to Perplexity, an AI company which put in an offer to buy the browser for $34.5 billion after the DOJ suggested the sale. Though, a forced sale can still come through from appeal.

While Google may find it trickier to work with its partners, its retention of Android and Chrome is certainly a win.

This isn’t the first time Google has been penalized over its practices. The European Commission alone has hit the company with four fines totaling over 11 billion euros. There is also a separate case in the U.S. against Google, started in 2023, which was also ruled in favor of the DOJ, with remediation is expected to happen soon. This one is specifically about Google maintaining a monopoly through Adtech.

How will Google’s antitrust affect the SEO industry?

With how much pushback Google is receiving for its domination in search markets, there is a strong possibility that Google will not be the only key player in SEO anymore. An in-depth analysis from Search Engine Journal surmises several possible changes to the SEO landscape.

For years, rivals such as DuckDuckGo or Bing have been vying for growth in the space with little luck. AI companies such as Perplexity are also entering. With the newly imposed restrictions on licensing and upcoming remediation from the adtech case, Google’s grasp on the search engine market might seriously start to slip.

In fact, part of the remediation includes the forced sharing of certain data with rivals. Such a thing is unprecedented and could see Google lose its market share to alternatives in the future. With enough data, SEO experts might finally learn what is actually ‘behind the curtain’ in Google’s SERP ranking algorithm in the modern age.

Another suggestion made by the DOJ was allowing websites to ‘opt out’, applicable to features such as appearing in AI overviews and even SERP features like snippets.

If enough websites with helpful content opt out, users might start avoiding these features. As it stands, opting out of any one feature is to opt directly out of Google, and an absolute SEO death sentence.

Lastly, Chrome or Android being sold is still on the table as the DOJ pushes its other Google case forward and other potential antitrust cases. Perplexity made a bid as previously mentioned, and so did Search.com. It’s clear that there are many buyers on the market if Chrome went up for sale, and such an action would have a profound effect on the SEO industry.

All of these changes spell out the same message that SEO has always said: high quality, informative content with good site layout, and each of these components have different reasons behind them.

If a website or business opts out of any Google features, helpful and informative content could give it a bigger “vote” as users avoid these features to go directly to the website.

If alternatives do sweep the search engine market, as AI companies are already seeming to do with promising alternatives, then their best interest is in ranking good content first. In fact, many users of Google’s search engine already complain about a severe drop in quality. Other search engines are likely to capitalize on this consumer frustration.

Conclusion

Google will still be around for the foreseeable future, but the compounding pushes from multiple governments on what it owns indicates that tides might change soon. With more remediation on the horizon, Google is sure to not have the best time maintaining its grasp over key markets.

Bracing for the impact of AI through high-quality, informative content and good website layout among other traditional SEO pillars is the best thing anyone can do to keep their digital marketing strategy in tip-top shape through the search engine turbulence.

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