Have you noticed your primary business category change from organic view to local pack view?

[gbimbh]

During a GBP audit, I noticed that the primary business category of top competitors (Screenshot 1) shows as concrete contractor when seen in organic results but as soon as I click "More Businesses" in Desktop view their category changes to Waterproofing company (Screenshot 2). What's even weirder to me is that when I click a competitor's listing on Maps, the primary category changes yet again from Concrete to Waterproofing company (Screenshot 3).

Questions:

1. Does this happen commonly? What causes this?
2. Does this impact ranking/traffic from discovery searches?
3. Does the arbitrary change in business category by Google distort keyword data?

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Google has done this for a few years. Google displays the category that they think is most relevant to the query searched.

It doesn't seem to impact ranking. In other words, the primary category still carries the most weight.

I don't think it would distort keyword data in any way.

 

[WilliamGMBE]

@gbimbh

To add to what @Colan Nielsen , you can always use the share button on google maps to go to the indivitual business page. There you can see the actual Primary Category showing below the name.