How to See What Categories a Google Places Listing is Using
Previously I was always utilizing MapMaker to find the list of categories that a Google Places/Google Plus Local page was targeting. However there is a faster way:
- Right click on the listing
- Click View Page Source
- Press CTRL + F and search for “GCID”
- The categories the page is targeting will all be listed together
Example: https://plus.google.com/118129846418670933134/posts
Pulls up:
gcid:canadian_restaurant
gcid:restaurant
gcid:fine_dining_restaurant
gcid:bar
*Notes: This approach doesn’t catch custom categories which still sometimes exist in MapMaker & only works on verified listings (thanks to the comments on this article).
It appears to work only on claimed listings, FYI.
Good catch! I updated the post. Thanks 🙂
Thx for sharing!
On unclaimed listings search for “data-payload” or “data-displaytext”.
But actually it’s a search on unclaimed listings not necessary, or have unclaimed listings more then one categories in it?
I checked and that method doesn’t catch them all – just a couple. Good example is https://plus.google.com/114103198894444588600/about – it doesn’t show “Insurance Agency” anywhere in the page source even though this is a category on MapMaker. So for unclaimed listings I would just use MapMaker.
Great tip, Joy. Sometimes there is an easier way though. If the categories appearing next to the i icon are not hotlinked, you can click on the black text and the list of categories will appear. However, if the category is hotlinked, this doesn’t work and your tip is perfect. Why are some hotlinked and others not? If there are just 1 or 2 categories, they will be hotlinked. The exception to that rule is that Google doesn’t appear to be counting the top level categories. For example, if an attorney has 3 categories: Attorney, Personal Injury Attorney and Immigration Attorney as categories, the last two will show as hotlinks. If you add Business Attorney into the mix, there will be no hotlinks.
[…] Joy Hawkins from Imprezzio Marketing is a wealth of savvy local search marketing knowledge. Recently she shared a nifty way to identify what categories a Google+ local page is listed as. […]
Joy, have you discovered a new method with the new G+?
Yes! I have discovered that G+ is now useless for getting any information about the business listing 🙂 Use MapMaker!