Best Practice: Find the right category

Google Maps tips & tricks
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A slight feeling of embarrassment originally kept me from publishing this tip, as it is based on my own experience as a beginning local guide, and as I felt really silly when I figured out what the solution was. But then I noticed on the Connect forum that there were several occasions where a local guide posted that (s)he was facing exactly the same problem. So I will confess to it after all.

When you add a new point of interest, one of the mandatory fields is ‘category’. You can’t submit the information unless you add something in that field. And obviously you want to add the best fitting category. But the problem seems to be that the list you get presented to choose from is quite short and only contains some general categories (Restaurant, School, Bank, etc). Some very basic business categories like ‘Hair salon’ or ‘Accountant’ are simply not listed!

This was an easy one - and in the "default" list: bank
This was an easy one - and in the "default" list: bank1920×1080 306 KB
If you’re at this point, you have made the invalid assumption - as I had initially done - that the categories in that list are the only ones you can choose from. They are not. Not by far. You should really only look at them as a kind of frequently used categories that are shown as examples. In reality you can access almost 4.000 different categories in English (or 3.000 in most other languages). The only thing you need to do is start typing the name of what you are looking for. In the hair salon example, typing ‘hair’ will certainly show you the category you are looking for. Yes, it is that easy.

Other posts in this series:

Best Practice: Find new places to add to the map

Best Practice: Fix inconsistencies in chains

Best Practice: Learn to be patient

Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

Best Practice: Industrial Zones

This is a revised version of a post that I had published earlier, before the switch of the forum to its current format.

Disclaimer: the practices described here as best practice are my personal interpretation, and I don’t claim any level of official endorsement.

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Hello @JanVanHaver ,

Thank you for another amazing post. You’re absolutely right about searching category on google maps. I’ve few useful links to share with you & other visitors.

Thank you

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Thanks for adding those links @deepakjhic . The problem with static lists, however, is that they are no longer up to date when Google makes a change to the categories. That is why I usually use this great free tool to retrieve the up to date list at any given moment. I use it to check from time to time if new categories are added - as far as I can see, the last time this happened was the time I described in this post.

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Thank you so much… I will try it and connect with you soon.

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@JanVanHaver @sonnyNg

Excellent post JanVanHaver, not silly at all, in fact it is rather helpful. But my point is that Local Names, nuances will only be caught if we are allowed an ‘Others’ category. e.g. Kirana Shops are an important format of Retail in India, Panwala is a very small, ubiquitous but important retail format which has no equivalent in English language. Just something to ponder!

And I listened to your podcast too…it was excellent.

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Thank you for that wonderful feedback @yagokd .

As for the missing categories: I know categories that are available for local types of businesses (meaning: not in US, only in one or a few countries), so it is not impossible to have those included. My suggestion would be to create 1 separate post on Idea Exchange for each specific category you would like to have added on Maps (as you noticed: if the idea you post is not very specific, there is a big chance it will get merged), and in that post explain clearly why having that category would be an added value to the local users of Google Maps - and include a picture illustrating your argumentation if possible. I have an example where this technique has proven to be successful in this post (which has the status ‘In progress’ now).

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Hello!
It’s possible to add new category when you adding missed places?For example, Summits on mountains and Rocks or we only can add business locations on cities maps?

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Hello @borachok ,

There is no option for Local Guides to add new categories by themselves on Google Maps, however if you notice that a category is missing in your region, you can suggest this as an idea in Idea Exchange, board. To learn more about the Idea Exchange, you can read this article How do I use the Idea Exchange?

Please note that I merged your post here: Best Practice: Find the right category, where you can read more about categories. If you need any further help, Connect Moderator @JanVanHaver is a category savvy, and he is going to lend you a hand.

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The timely response i just needed,Thank you @JanVanHaver

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It’s always very nice to get such feedback from a scholar :wink: @Scholar

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A mi me pasa a menudo un problema para elegir las categorías, el sistema no me permite elegir algunas categorías que yo se que existen y que ya las he usado antes. Por ejemplo, si voy a agregar un restaurante, solo debo escoger la categoría “Restaurante” que es una de las más básicas, pero, si no escribo nada y escojo de la lista tengo que desplazarme por una larga lista hasta llegar a la letra R y encontrar la categoría buscada que es “Restaurante”. Se supone que si lo escribo es más rápido y fácil pero al escribir “Restaurante” no me aparece la opción de restaurante sino que me aparecen los distintos tipos de restaurantes como son: Restaurante Chino, Restaurante italiano, Restaurante mexicano, etc. Lo mismo me sucede con otras categorías