Google Adds Neighborhood Info to Knowledge Panel

April 27, 2016
Joy Hawkins
GMB
2 Comments

I noticed today that Google started displaying the neighborhood a business is in beside their primary category on Google in the knowledge panel.

There is no field for this in Google My Business and Google is pulling this data from MapMaker’s locality and sub-locality fields.

If the listing has both a sub-locality and locality field filled out, Google appears to be showing the most specific one (sub-locality).

Since this feature doesn’t exist in MapMaker in the USA (it used to), it appears to be showing only in the Local Finder’s version of the knowledge panel, but not on Google search when you search for the business name.

Joy Hawkins

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006, writes for publications such as Search Engine Land, and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as MozCon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove, and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google My Business Forum.

This Post Has 2 Comments

J Poole says:

May 24, 2017 at 9:09 pm

Are there any possible negative consequences to adding a sub locality?

Reply
1. Joy Hawkins says:
  
  May 25, 2017 at 12:51 pm
  
  Hey Jennifer,
  
  Without MapMaker there currently isn’t a way to add a sublocality. If you see one there, it’s just algorithmically added. To answer your question though, I don’t see any negative or positive impacts of having one.
  
  Reply