Request to Add More Business Categories for Local Businesses

Google Maps contribution stories
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Hi Local Guides and Google Maps Team,

I am a Local Guide from Islamabad, Pakistan, and I enjoy contributing by adding small businesses in my neighborhood and city to Google Maps. While doing so, I noticed a significant challenge that I believe many of us may also face: the lack of relevant business categories for some local businesses.

For example, naan shops or Tandoor. Naans are an essential part of the Pakistani diet, and almost every neighborhood has several naan shops. However, there is no appropriate category to describe these businesses on Google Maps. The closest available options are Bakery or Caterer, but neither accurately represents what a naan shop is.

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This issue is not limited to naan shops. I am sure other countries and regions also have local business types that do not align with the available categories on Google Maps. This can lead to incorrect listings and make it harder for users to find the right places.

I request Google Maps team members and its moderators (@DeniGu & @JanVanHaver) to consider adding more localized business categories that reflect the diversity of businesses across different cultures and regions.

If any fellow Local Guides have faced similar issues while adding businesses in your area, please share your experiences and examples in the comments. Let’s collaborate to highlight this need and make Google Maps more inclusive and accurate for everyone.

Thank you!

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@abbasiii as Google is a US-based company, the list of categories has a strong focus on the situation in the US - that has always been the case, and is not really a problem as such.

In recent years quite a few efforts have been made to add categories that are fitting for specific countries and regions, as you can see in some of the “new category”-posts that I publish from time to time, e.g. this post (a full overview can be found here), so I am pretty confident that more will be added in the future.

And this is of course where our feedback can be helpful. By providing detailed info here on Connect, we can give input to the team in charge of curating the list. And just ot make sure there is no misunderstanding: neither Connect moderators nor Google moderators on this platform have any direct influence on which categories are added or not, but everything posted on Connect can and will be forwarded/pointed out to the team that can make the decisions.

My advice, therefore, when it comes to naan shops: please write a separate post here on Connect that does not simply say “we need more local categores”, but a post that provides specific info about naan shops:

  • how much of those are there in your country? e.g. one or more in every village?
  • do you have them in other countries?
  • what makes them different from existing categories like bakery?
  • etc.

You can also include some pics from naan shops in you neighbourhood or Maps screenshots where you mark them on the map.

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@JanVanHaver this is a great advice. I will definitely write another post with more details and factual information for this. Really appreciate your guidance.

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