Google quietly added local business queries to two of its EEA search units — the aggregator unit and the supplier unit — as of 18 September 2026. Directories now need a Local Point of Interest feed to show up in the aggregator unit. Local businesses — salons, restaurants, plumbers — can show up in the supplier unit next to it, and Google's own documentation says no extra data submission is required if your site is already crawlable.
At WebEpex we build and maintain sites for high-ticket service businesses across the GCC, Europe, USA, Canada, and India, and we reviewed both documentation pages the day this update landed to see what it actually changes for our Europe-facing clients.
What Are Google's EEA Search Units, and What Changed?#
Google's Search Central docs, updated 18 September 2026, add local business queries to the aggregator unit and the supplier unit. Both were built for the EU's Digital Markets Act, a rollout we covered in depth back in September when Google restructured EU/EEA layout for travel and hospitality. The aggregator unit surfaces multiple vertical search providers — directories, comparison sites, metasearch engines. The supplier unit shows the direct business itself, and only appears when an aggregator unit also appears.
Until now these covered hotels, flights, and ground transportation. Google's own supplier unit page uses "providers of services like plumbing" as the example for the newly added local category, which tells you plainly who this is aimed at.
Does This Change Anything if You're Not in the EEA?#
Short answer: no. This is scoped to European Economic Area searchers only — Google says so explicitly on both pages. If your customers are in the US, GCC, or Canada, nothing about how your site is indexed or ranked changes today.
If you're a service business with European customers, or you run a directory in EEA markets, keep reading.
The Honest Pros and Cons#
The upside: Google states you don't need extra data submission to appear in the supplier unit. Crawling is enough. That's a low floor. If your site already has clean, accurate NAP data (name, address, phone) and structured markup, you're most of the way there without lifting a finger.
The catch is visibility, not eligibility. The supplier unit only renders when an aggregator unit is also showing, and aggregator placement favors directories that submitted a Local Point of Interest feed. So a plumber with a clean website is eligible, but a directory that bothered to submit a feed is more likely to be the thing users see first. My read is this tilts early traffic toward aggregators over the next few months, though Google hasn't published data to confirm that — that part's my opinion, not a documented fact.
There's also no confirmed rollout timeline for query volume. The docs describe the feature; they don't say how many EEA local searches will actually trigger it.
How We're Handling It#
We pulled both Search Central pages the day the update landed and checked them against the technical SEO checklist we already run on client sites — schema markup and page speed both feed into this, alongside consistent NAP across the site and any citations, and a crawlable, non-JS-gated contact page. For our Europe-facing service-business clients specifically, we're treating this as a reason to tighten structured data now, not wait and see.
We're not chasing the aggregator-feed route for clients yet — that's a directory-side integration, not something an individual local business does — but we flagged it to the couple of clients who also run comparison or listing-style sites, since that's a distinct opportunity from the supplier-unit side. If you want the deeper AEO context on why structured, crawlable data keeps paying off beyond this one update, we've written about that too.
What I'd Tell a Client Asking About This#
If you're a local service business with EEA customers: check that your site has LocalBusiness schema and that your NAP data matches your Google Business Profile. That's it. You're not required to do anything new to be eligible, per Google's own page.
If you're a directory or comparison site: read the Local Point of Interest feed spec before assuming you're covered. Aggregator eligibility is a submission process, not automatic.
Everyone else: this doesn't touch your setup yet. Worth bookmarking, not worth a rebuild.
If you want a second pair of eyes on whether your site's actually crawlable the way Google's describing here, send me the URL and I'll take a look — costs you nothing, cal.com/webepex/growth-review.
