google's playing favorites with the eea again lol. saw they updated the aggregator and supplier units to actually include things like dining and beauty salons instead of just hotels and flights. it's pretty wild that they're basically replacing existing units for these searches without saying much about what happens to the old local pack.
>The aggregator unit replaces existing unitsif this actually kills the standard map pack visibility for small shops, we're in trouble. aggregators have to send a whole point of interest feed with addresses and ratings just to get in the game, which sounds like a nightmare for anyone not running a massive directory. businesses themselves don't need to do anything special yet, but if you want to actually look good, you've got to leverage feeds. i'm skeptical about how much this helps the little guys when the top-ranked provider gets expanded by default anyway. sounds like another way to funnel all the traffic into a few massive players. might be
great a disaster for local visibility if the supplier unit only shows up when an aggregator is present.
article:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-adds-local-businesses-to-eea-search-result-units/589955/