A–Z
Core terms
Use these definitions as a starting point and consult official documentation for rules and procedures.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Service area | The region where a business provides services at the customer’s location. It does not mean the business has a location in every city. |
| Primary category | The classification that best describes the business’s core activity in the profile. |
| Secondary categories | Additional classifications for other real business activities. |
| Google Business Profile | Google’s product for managing how eligible businesses appear across Search and Maps. |
| Google Maps | The maps and location service where eligible business profiles can appear. |
| NAP | An industry acronym for name, address and phone number. Consistency matters, but it does not summarize the entire local strategy. |
| Duplicate profile | Two or more presences representing the same business or location without justification. |
| Primary owner | The account with the central level of administrative control over the profile. |
| Claiming | The process of requesting control over an existing business presence. |
| Local relevance | How closely the business matches the intent of a query, considered together with distance and prominence. |
| Suspension or restriction | A limitation applied to the profile, account or content that requires diagnosis and use of official procedures. |
| UTM | Parameters added to URLs to identify source, medium and campaign in analytics tools. |