Google Redesigns SERPs in Europe: Impact on E-commerce and Travel

What has changed in the SERPs of the European Economic Area

In September 2026, Google rolled out a significant redesign of search results pages for all users in the European Economic Area. As reported by Search Engine Journal, the change directly affects vertical queries: hotels, flights, transport and commercial products.

Specifically, Google has reworked the so-called aggregator units, the blocks that combine results from multiple sources. Alongside them, it has introduced new supplier units: sections dedicated to direct suppliers, which appear in prominent positions on the SERP. For the first time, an independent hotel or an airline can appear in a structured format separate from aggregators like Booking or Skyscanner.

This redesign is no coincidence. It comes out of the European Digital Markets Act, which requires Google to guarantee fairer access conditions for direct suppliers. As a result, the visual structure of the SERP changes, and so do the optimization rules for anyone who wants to stay visible.

The immediate impact on e-commerce, travel and hospitality

For Italian companies in these sectors, the implications are concrete and immediate. However, not every business is exposed in the same way.

In travel and hospitality, accommodation providers and transport companies with up-to-date structured markup, in particular schema.org/Hotel, schema.org/Flight and schema.org/LodgingBusiness, now have the chance to appear in the new supplier units. If you haven't implemented this markup, you risk staying invisible in those blocks and handing visibility to the aggregators.

In e-commerce, the redesign of product units calls for a review of your feeds and of Product and Offer structured data. Compatibility with Google Merchant Center also becomes even more important. SMEs that sell online without structured management of their data catalog will find it hard to compete in the new formats.

Finally, for those in the transport sector (bus, train, rental), the new dedicated units open up competitive space that didn't exist in such an explicit form in Italian and European SERPs before.

Structured data: the technical issue that decides visibility

The operational core of this update is technical. Google uses structured data to populate the new formats. Without correct, up-to-date markup, no content can hope to appear in the supplier units.

According to Google's official structured data guidelines, the most relevant schema types for this update include: Hotel, Product, Offer, Flight and LocalBusiness. The quality and completeness of the fields you fill in also directly affect eligibility for the format.

A thorough technical audit is therefore the first step. At SHM Studio, this kind of check is part of our standard approach to our SEO services, with specific attention to how well your markup works with the latest rich result formats. This update also makes the integration of technical SEO and product feed management even more urgent.

The regulatory framework that pushed Google to act

This redesign isn't a purely editorial choice by Google. So it helps to understand the regulatory context behind it.

The Digital Markets Act requires so-called gatekeepers, Google among them, not to favor their own services in search results. As a result, Google has had to redesign its vertical formats to guarantee fair access for direct suppliers too. Similarly, the European Commission has already opened proceedings against Google over self-preferencing in shopping and travel searches.

The current redesign is therefore also a response to regulatory pressure. For Italian companies, this means the change is structural and won't be reversed in the short term. Investing in optimization for the new formats is a multi-year decision.

What to do in the coming weeks: operational priorities

In response to this update, operational priorities fall into three distinct levels.

• Audit your existing structured data. Check that your current markup is compatible with the new Google formats. Use Google's Rich Results Test to identify errors and missing fields. Also check coverage in Search Console, where rich result reports show which pages are eligible and which are excluded.
• Update markup for the affected verticals. For travel and hospitality, implement or update the Hotel, LodgingBusiness and TouristAttraction schemas. For e-commerce, check that your Product and Offer fields are complete, including price, availability and currency.
• Monitor your positions in the new formats. Traditional organic ranking metrics don't capture visibility in supplier units. You need to add tools designed for rich results and vertical formats to your monitoring.

In this context, our SEO copywriting work goes hand in hand with the technical side: page content must support and stay consistent with the structured data you implement.

Visibility in European SERPs: a work in progress

This update is not an isolated event. It is part of a broader transformation of European and global SERPs that is redefining the rules of organic visibility.

In our cluster on SEO and AI visibility, we have already covered closely related dynamics. For example, the automatic expansion of Google's AI Overviews, described in our article on how Google auto-expands AI Overviews and what it means for SEO, is already squeezing organic CTR on many informational queries. And the topic of Search Console's AI reports and their impact on SEO audits shows how monitoring tools are evolving to keep pace with these changes.

Italian SMEs should therefore read the EEA SERP redesign as one piece of a more complex picture. Likewise, if you're working on your presence in AI answers, check out our analysis of how to earn citations in AI Answers and measure visibility: the principles of authority and data structure apply to both traditional rich result formats and the new AI formats.

Finally, anyone running a brand online also needs to consider the risks of inconsistent information spread across the web. Our deep dive on the risk of conflicting brand information in AI Search offers an editorial governance framework that applies in this context too.

Outlook for Italian SMEs in the affected verticals

For Italian mid-sized companies in travel, hospitality and e-commerce, this update is both a risk and a real opportunity.

The risk is immediate: if you don't act, your visibility in European SERPs shrinks in favor of businesses that have already structured their data properly. But the opportunity is just as real. The new supplier units open up space that used to be almost entirely taken by aggregators. So a well-structured independent hotel can now compete more directly with Booking.com on Google's SERP.

To make the most of this window, you need to move fast. Our digital marketing and AI integration services support companies along the way, from the audit phase through implementation and ongoing monitoring. And if you want to strengthen your presence through paid channels too, Google Ads campaigns can complement your organic strategy during the transition period.

In short, the SERP redesign in the EEA is not a minor update. It's a structural change that redistributes visibility and opportunity. Those who act now with a rigorous technical approach will gain a measurable competitive advantage in the coming months. To talk with our team, you can contact SHM Studio for an assessment of your current situation.