We have put on line a simple, searchable interface to the Google Local Business Center (LBC) categories and synonym lists. The idea is to to assist in early planning and judicious picking of the most appropriate categories for your LBC listing. At this point, the categories included are for the US LBC only.
Late last year I published the Google LBC Category list as an HTML page of all the categories but I wanted to make the list more manageable so I have placed it in a database with a simple search interface.
Google LBC Category Preview Tool
Your feedback and suggestions would be welcomed!
[...] You can access the tool here. And here’s Mike’s brief explanation of how it works. [...]
Pingback by How to Choose the Right Category in Google’s Local Listings — February 8, 2010 @ 4:06 pm
Hi Mike,
Nice tool, however, why do we see every keyword twice or more?
& more interesting- how does a “flagged” keyword (such as Locksmith, for example) affect the other synonyms or related keywords? should we assume that those words are flagged as well?
Comment by Abby (8 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 5:26 pm
Great tool. What are the odds you can add the category ID? That would be a huge help. Thanks again for all of the great information.
Comment by Jason (4 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 6:24 pm
Oooh, fantastic, Mike. Really coming along with this!
Comment by MiriamEllis (374 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 6:51 pm
@Jason
are you referring to the bulk upload categories?
Comment by Mike (1096 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 7:50 pm
@Abby
I am not seeing double categories. Can
you send me a screen
shot?
Comment by Mike (1096 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 7:54 pm
Mike – has anyone else commented on Google slipping the County into the LBL page? I’ve seen this with a couple of my clients listings — it may be there for a few days and disappears.
http://screencast.com/t/YTAzZmJiY
No big deal, I suppose, except for when they said the Westminster, CO was in Delaware County. No such county in Colorado!
Becky
Comment by Becky DeGrossa (1 comments) — February 8, 2010 @ 11:03 pm
Hi Mike
Nice little tool – I will have a good play with. I’m based in the UK so if you do a version covering UK GLBC categories give me a shout.
Good stuff…
Comment by Andrew (4 comments) — February 10, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
Hi Mike
Great tool, thanks for putting that together.
I’m also seeing dupes in the synonyms, search for “dental” and in the synonym list for some of the categories I see “….dental, dental, dental….”
Reuben
Comment by Reuben Yau (5 comments) — February 10, 2010 @ 11:12 pm
@Reuben
Abby sent along a screen shot and I saw what she was seeing.
Somehow along the way, we doubled up all of the data and when we purged the double categories forgot to purge the doubled up synonyms…thanks for the heads up…as soon as the programmer can get back on it, we will get it fixed.
Comment by Mike (1096 comments) — February 10, 2010 @ 11:20 pm
[...] guru Mike Blumenthal recently released a tool that allows you to search the entire database of Google Maps categories [...]
Pingback by Choose The Right Categories for Your Google LBC Listing | The Expand2Web Blog — February 11, 2010 @ 12:53 am
Cool tool. I don’t think it is duplicating results…just the formatting of the results makes it look that way.
Comment by Allen Hirsch (1 comments) — February 19, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
@Allen
It was duplicating the synonyms but we fixed that. Let us know if there are more bugs that you find
Comment by Mike (1096 comments) — February 19, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
[...] a brief tutorial on how to utilize this awesome [...]
Pingback by Local SEO - Choosing the Right Category in Google’s Local Listings : Pay Per Click Marketing & Advertising Blog — February 23, 2010 @ 12:10 am
Hi Mike,
Great tool. I have used it today when choosing categories for a business listing client.
Comment by SE-Man (1 comments) — February 24, 2010 @ 5:00 pm
[...] design expert Mike Blumenthal released the beta version of a Google LBC Category Preview tool that allows you to search [...]
Pingback by Best Practices for Your Google Local Business Centre Listing | SEO Global Network — March 11, 2010 @ 6:40 pm