Allows viewing of Google Business Profile, Google My Business "Categories" for single listings or top 20 Google search results.
*NEW Version 3.01 updated December 2023 to support Google search and map updates, fix known bugs.
Do you love keeping an 👀eye on your competitors? Just wait until you try GMBspy🕵🏼
With one simple click, we show you the current categories for any Google Business Profile, or GBP (formerly known as Google My Business, or GMB, hence the name GMBspy!). You can also find common GBP categories for any top 20 search results, in either Google Maps or Google Local Finder. Audit your GBP page along with competitors and see certain listings are winning in local search!
Why are GBP Categories so important? Categories are one of Google's number one local search engine optimization (local SEO) ranking element. Categories are important content elements that help feed Google's knowledge graph, and can help improve your rankings in local Google Search. Choosing the right GBP categories is an important first step in optimizing the listing for SEO. While the GBP category information is public, it can be difficult for the average user to locate this information manually in the HTML. The GMBspy tool saves you tons of manual work, automating this "spying" process! You can even download a comma-quote-separated file with the business names and categories for the top 20 search results for any Google Maps or Google Local Finder search query. From car dealers to pizza parlors, small retailers to big box national brands, we show you all of the individual GBP categories, or the categories of matching businesses in search results, so you can see why one business may be outranking another in local Google search.
📕INSTRUCTIONS: Now that you have located the GMBspy extension in the Chrome Store, click on the “Add to Chrome” button on the top right. Once you install the GMBspy Chrome Extension you should then click on the thumbtack icon in the upper right Chrome toolbar to “pin” the GMBspy extension onto your Chrome toolbar. This will allow the extension to always appear in the toolbar, ready for action!
Next you are ready to use the extension. First you must select a GBP listing from Google Search or Google Maps, you then fire the GMBspy extension to view current categories for this individual selected listing. The default tab is “Selected”, this shows the categories for the single, selected GBP page. If you want to see the GBP Categories for listings in the “local map pack” of 3 results, simply select the Local Pack tab. If you would like to download a comma-separated-value (.csv) file containing the names, primary categories, and secondary categories of the top-20 ranked GBP listings, simply click “Download as CSV” at the bottom of the window. Once the CSV file is downloaded, it can be opened and viewed by applications such as Microsoft Excel or Apple Numbers.
👩🏻💻For technical support on GMBspy, 🐦Tweet to @generationsdig
Here are the top troubleshooting tips:
1. Make sure you have first selected a Google Business Profile before firing the GMBspy extension.
2. The Local Pack tab will only work when searching for a business category, vs. a specific business name. An example search would be 'coffee near me'.
2. If the extension doesn't deliver the correct business categories, or gives an error, simply refresh the Chrome browser window.
3. When all troubleshooting fails, you should remove the GMBspy extension and re-install it from the Chrome Store.
❓🕵🏼❓If you have additional questions, visit our GMBspy web page at:
https://www.generationsdigital.com/gmbspy
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Thank you for your support! 🕵🏼
Latest reviews
- (2023-09-24) Talal Badra: Didn't work. Tried everything.
- (2023-06-21) Endika B.J: No funciona en 2023
- (2023-05-11) Martin Silberkurve: i selected a business but it shows no data
- (2022-11-19) Dragan Stojanovic: Just amazing! All the best to the dev team!
- (2022-07-09) Rafael PIQUERAS: De France: Incroyable je suis dans la téléphonie j'ai une boutique, j'ai espionné toutes les catégories de mes concurrents et je me suis positionné sur leurs créneaux! 20/20! Outil indispensable
- (2021-12-08) Newell Starks: I don't know of any other tool which finds primary and secondary GMB categories. This is simply terrific. How else could a company pick their own primary category with any degree of precision in relation to their competition?
- (2021-11-02) Drew Spinoso: Never worked. Followed directions to a T. Even deleted other pinned extensions. No bueno.
- (2021-09-06) Todd Bernath: Great little tool George, and an amazing time saver. Perfect addition. Thanks!
- (2021-09-03) Suzanne Hull: I highly recommend this tool! It is extremely helpful to know what similar businesses and competitors are using for their categories, to be sure our businesses are ranking higher in Google My Business. It is a must-have for anyone who realizes the value of GMB.
- (2021-09-03) Jake Maki: Great SEO tool that is getting regular improvements. Definitely a time saver.
- (2021-09-03) Chris Robinson: GMBSpy is a great tool to have in your SEO toolbox. I am able to spy on my competition and see what tricks they may be up to and make changes
- (2021-09-03) Lexi Herbers: Fantastic tool! I use it in my everyday research for local rankings!
- (2021-09-03) Sarah Sweeney: GMB Spy is a great tool to research the competitive landscape for local search. Knowing your competitor's primary & secondary categories for Google My Business will help you find areas you can maximize for non branded searches. Easy to use, you don't have to hunt in source code anymore!
- (2021-09-02) Brice Englert: Amazing tool... saves time, gets exactly what you need when you need it!
- (2021-09-02) Molly Nicholson: I am looking at the GMBspy Intructions doc from 8-20-2020 and I have it installed correctly. When I click on the little icon, the menu for the extension itself opens up and there is NO data like promised. Help?!
- (2021-07-19) Keith Bales: GMB Spy has been a fantastic tool to research and gain insight into categories being used by GMB listings. Very helpful and a great tool!
- (2021-02-16) Ryan: never works. Just shows a bunch of dots
- (2020-10-08) Tim Colling: This is a handy tool and it works well. Note that it only works in Google Maps, not in Google search results pages.
- (2020-10-07) Michael Donovan: Our team at Search Engines MD uses this tool for audits on a daily basis and highly recommend this tool. If you put a lot of effort into GMB then this tool is a must.
- (2020-10-06) Dave Spannhake: The team at Reunion Marketing has used this tool for several audits both for our existing partners as well as to help showcase opportunities for prospects as we share opportunity areas for dealerships not yet working with us. It's fast and easy to use. This helps monitor both your dealerships and your competitors, a very helpful tool for anyone working in GMB. Reunion endorsed!
- (2020-10-06) Cody Jerry: What a great resource for Local SEO!
- (2020-10-06) Matt Triana: I use this tool whenever I am auditing GMB profiles and it has proved to be very useful. I really like how the results pull down onto the page because I include this in my screenshots and call it out. This has saved me a lot of time and really helps show value to our customers and prospects.
- (2020-10-06) Amy Peck: This is a great tool that our team uses every day. It saves us a ton of time!
- (2020-10-05) Tim Colling: It was nice while it worked, but now it no longer works. :(
- (2020-09-18) taras wp: Great tool!
- (2020-09-18) Trevor Nadeau: This is really an amazing tool. Really will help clients understand how they can improve their discoverability versus their local competitors. Found out about GMBSpy during the Whitespark Summit. Thank you.
- (2020-09-14) Andrew Optimisey: What a time saver! Digging out a listing (or competitor's!) primary & secondary categories used to be such a pain! This lil' gizmo does it in a click! Great stuff.
- (2020-09-08) Andy Ferrero: Saves a lot of time !!! a great toool
- (2020-09-04) Paul Nenni: Very helpful tool to see how your competitors are getting discovered on google searches.
- (2020-09-02) Jay Skunkworks: Seems to work well. Looking forward to using this more!
- (2020-08-31) Chris Clarke: Works well. But you have to remember to change the url from .co.uk to .com if using it in the UK. Don't know if the mask for permitted domains allows for a wildcard on the TLD? i..e google.* rather than Google.com/* ?
- (2020-08-28) Payam Karbalai: Great Tool! Very helpful and indeed useful
- (2020-08-27) Isma M: Great tool! no need to check the source anymore.
- (2020-08-22) Steve Stauning: Great little tool that makes it quick and easy to check the GMB categories of competitors. Also recommended for companies with multiple GMB listings.
Statistics
Installs
30,000
history
Category
Rating
4.093 (43 votes)
Last update / version
2023-12-24 / 3.01
Listing languages
en-US