Google Search adds activities and attractions to its EEA results units

On November 9, Google confirmed that two Search results units now support queries about activities and attractions. The change applies to users in the European Economic Area, including Romania. When Google shows these units, users can see offers from platforms that bring together multiple providers and, in a separate area, results from businesses that supply the activity directly.

Where the two units appear

Google recorded the change in its Search Central update log and in the documentation for the two formats. The formats already supported other searches, including those about hotels and flights. Google had added support for local business queries in September. Its November documentation explicitly includes the “things to do” category, for which the company gives attractions as an example.

For a search about what to visit in a city, one difference between the units is where a result can take the user. An intermediary can list activities run by several businesses in a single catalog. A direct provider presents its own activity. In the first case, clicking a result in the aggregator unit opens the page supplied by the intermediary. Results from direct providers can appear in the unit alongside it.

Google says the supplier unit appears only when the aggregator unit is also shown. Having an indexed page about an attraction and seeing either unit in Search are separate matters. The company describes a feature that can appear for certain relevant queries. The category of the query and the fact that the user is searching from the European Economic Area both matter to the documented availability of the feature.

How aggregator offers are displayed

The aggregator unit is intended for specialist search services, which Google calls Vertical Search Services. Depending on the sector, these can include online travel agencies, comparison engines or directories. In the results for a query, the unit initially expands the list from the provider Google ranked first. When alternatives are available, users can select a different aggregator and see the offers it supplied within the same unit.

Participation involves approval as a specialist search service, content relevant to the query type, and data that meets Google's requirements. The company provides an expression-of-interest form for several sectors, including activities and attractions. A platform serving people in the EEA can use that form to contact Google. Approval and data integration are separate stages from submitting the form.

For local businesses and activities, Google describes a structured point-of-interest feed. It carries details about physical places, such as their name, address and phone number, alongside attributes such as category and photographs. In its Actions Center documentation, Google says the data submitted through this feed is used for the unit belonging to the partner that supplied it. The local integration calls for a direct contractual relationship between the platform and the merchants it represents and goes through separate reviews in test and production environments.

What Google uses for direct providers

Google sets out two basic conditions for the supplier unit. The site must serve users in the EEA, and the organization must directly provide the service or activity that can answer the query. For an attraction, its operator is the direct provider. A platform that lists attractions managed by multiple operators in one catalog falls into the other category if it meets the aggregator criteria.

Google can use information it can access through normal website crawling to show supplier results. Its documentation says additional data is optional for this route. Where data feeds are available, they can enrich the results. That differs from the aggregator integration, in which an aggregator supplies the data used to populate its own list within the unit.

An operator and a booking platform may both have pages about the same place, but the pages describe different relationships with the offer. The operator presents the service it provides. The platform groups it with other options in its catalog. In a search for activities at a destination, this separation lets users distinguish the intermediary's results from options offered by direct providers when both units are shown.

The details that can accompany an offer

For the data used in the aggregator unit, Google recommends descriptive names and details that help users compare offers. Depending on the entity, examples include category, opening hours, clear images and verified ratings where that information is available. These details can distinguish offers in the same area before a user opens each page in the catalog.

When a platform supplies the price or availability of an offer, Google recommends keeping the data as close as possible to what users will see on the landing page. The same documentation recommends refreshing the feed to remove expired or unavailable listings. For an activity bookable at specific times, users can therefore encounter information about the offer in two places, in the search result and on the site it opens.

Google's local point-of-interest feed centers on places with a physical presence. For categories such as flights and long-distance transport, the same documentation points to real-time integrations with different requirements. The November expansion places activity searches in the first group. There, the aggregator's data describes places in its catalog, and the page linked from each result remains the one the partner supplies.