Glossary
Local search, in plain words.
The words that come up in rankings reports, agency pitches and our own dashboard, each in a sentence or two. Every term has its own link, so you can send someone straight to it.
A
- AI Mode
- Google's conversational search mode, where an AI writes an answer and you can ask follow-up questions. It draws on Google's own business data, among other sources.More: AI search guide
- AI Overview
- The AI-written summary Google shows at the top of some search results. It is more common on questions (“how much does a heat pump cost”) than on searches for a business.More: AI search guide
- Apple Business
- Apple's free listing for businesses, which feeds Apple Maps and Siri. It replaced Apple Business Connect in April 2026.More: Listings guide
- Attributes
- Short facts on a Google profile, such as “online estimates” or languages spoken. Only add the ones that are true.
- Attribution
- Working out which source a customer, a call or a job came from, so you can tell which marketing made money.More: How to tell if marketing makes money
B
- Baseline
- The first measurement, taken before any work starts. Every later measurement is compared with it, so it has to be taken the same way.More: Map coverage tracking
- Bing Places
- Microsoft's business listing service. It feeds Bing search, Bing Maps and Microsoft's Copilot assistant.
- Booked rate
- Of the enquiries from one source, the share that became booked jobs. A low rate points to a problem after the phone rings, not to visibility.More: Reading the numbers
C
- Citation
- Any listing of your business name, address and phone on another site: a directory, a map app, an association. Also called a listing.More: Canadian citations guide
- Closeout form
- A short form filled in when a quote is won or lost, recording the source and the value. Used where there is no job software to export from, common in commercial work.More: Revenue attribution
D
- Distance (proximity)
- How far a business is from the person searching, or from the place they searched for. One of Google's three local ranking factors, and the reason your position changes street by street.More: How the map pack works
- Doorway page
- A page made to rank for a search that sends people on somewhere else, such as a set of near-identical town pages with only the name swapped. Against Google's spam policies.More: Service-area pages guide
G
- Geo-grid
- A set of evenly spaced points over a service area. The same search is run as if from each point, and your position is recorded at every one.More: Geo-grids explained
- Google Business Profile
- Your free business listing on Google Search and Maps: name, category, hours, phone, reviews and more. Formerly Google My Business.More: Google profile service
- Grid point
- One spot on a geo-grid, standing in for a customer searching from there. Also called a zone.
H
- Heat map
- A geo-grid with each point coloured by your position: green in the map pack, red nowhere. The number should always be in the square too.More: How to read a heat map
L
- Lead source
- Where a customer says they found you: Google Maps, your website, a referral, a truck sign. Recorded at the first call, it is the missing piece in most attribution.
- llms.txt
- A proposed file meant to tell AI crawlers about a website. In a 2026 study, almost none were ever requested. Not worth paying for.More: AI search guide
- Local Services Ads
- Google's pay-per-lead ads for service businesses, shown above the map pack in many trades. They are ads, separate from the free map results.
M
- Manager access
- A role on a Google profile that lets someone edit it without owning it. The owner can remove a manager at any time.
- Map pack
- The block of usually three businesses Google shows under a map for a local search. Also called the local pack or 3-pack.More: How the map pack works
N
- NAP
- Name, address and phone number. Keeping these identical everywhere your business is listed is most of what citation work means.More: Citations guide
- “Near me” search
- A search like “plumber near me”, where Google uses the searcher's location. Different from a search that names a town, which leans towards businesses in that town.
O
- Open now
- Whether a business is open at the moment of the search. It rose into the top five map-pack factors in the 2026 expert survey, so exact hours matter.
- Organic results
- The regular, unpaid search results below the map and the ads. Your website competes here; your profile competes in the map.
P
- Primary category
- The one category on a Google profile that says what the business is. The strongest map-pack factor a business controls, by expert survey.More: Categories guide
- Prominence
- How well known and well regarded a business is, online and off: reviews, links, listings, mentions. One of Google's three local ranking factors.More: How the map pack works
- Proximity
- Another word for distance: how close the business is to the searcher.More: See Distance
R
- Relevance
- How well a profile matches the search. Mostly decided by the primary category, the services list and the page the profile links to. One of Google's three local ranking factors.More: How the map pack works
- Review gating
- Asking only happy customers for a review, or screening them first with a “how did we do?” question. Against Google's rules.More: Reviews guide
- Review velocity
- How often new reviews arrive. A steady monthly flow counts for more than a large total collected in one burst.More: Reviews guide
S
- Scaled content abuse
- Google's term for publishing many pages mainly to manipulate rankings rather than help people, however they were written.More: Service-area pages guide
- Schema (structured data)
- Code on a page that labels facts, such as the business name and services, for search engines. Good housekeeping, not a ranking or AI lever.
- Secondary category
- Extra categories after the primary. Only add ones the business genuinely is. Fewer is better.More: Categories guide
- Service area
- The towns or regions a business lists as the places it goes to. Mostly changes what customers see; ranking follows the verified location.More: The address question
- Service-area business
- A business that goes to its customers, such as a plumber or roofer. If customers are not served at the address, Google's guidelines say to hide it.More: The address question
- Service-area page
- A page about the work a business does in one town. Useful only with real local substance; otherwise it is a doorway page.More: Service-area pages
- Storefront
- A business that serves customers at its address during business hours, such as a clinic or a showroom. Its address is shown on the map.More: The address question
- Suspension
- Google removing or restricting a profile for breaking its guidelines. It affects every search at once, and needs an appeal with evidence to reverse.More: Profile checklist
U
- UTM tag
- A short label added to a link, such as the website link on your profile, so your analytics can tell those visits apart from others.
V
- Verification
- Google confirming that a business is real and at the place it claims. Now often done by a short video. Core fields are best left alone for about two weeks after.
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