Read your Map Insights: territory, categories, reviews and listing checks

Map Insights shows where you win on the map across every keyword, whether pins you miss are down to distance, the categories and review counts of the businesses in the top 3, and listing checks for keyword-heavy names.

Map Insights reads the geo-grid scans you already run and answers the questions a single scan can't: where you win across all of your keywords, whether the pins you miss are down to distance, what the businesses beating you have in common, and which rival listings deserve a closer look.

Where Map Insights lives

In the sidebar, open Analysis > Map Insights (/dashboard/map-insights) and pick a location. Choose one keyword, or All keywords to combine them.

Everything is based on the latest scan of each keyword you track. New scans are read in the background, usually within a few minutes of finishing.

Note: Map Insights needs at least one completed geo-grid scan for the location. The first time you open it, it can take a little while to read your recent scans.

Territory

The map shows where you hold a top 3 spot in the Map Pack and, where you don't, why not. Every pin you miss falls into one of two groups:

Closer than a business in the top 3: at least one business that makes the top 3 at that pin is further from the searcher than you are. Distance is not what is holding you back, so your categories, reviews and profile are where to work.
Everyone in the top 3 is closer: every business in the top 3 is nearer to the searcher than you. These are the hardest pins to win, and a useful way to set expectations for an area.

With All keywords selected, the map groups nearby pins into areas and shows how many of your keywords you hold the top 3 for in each one. Turn on Top rivals to see where the businesses that take the top 3 most often are based.

Pins Google didn't answer are shown separately and never counted as ground you lost.

Reviews

The Reviews tab compares your review count with the businesses that make the top 3 where you don't. For each keyword it shows:

the typical review count and rating of the business in 3rd place at the pins you miss
the typical review count across the businesses in the top 3 there
the gap between that and your own count
roughly how many months the gap would take to close at your recent pace

Your pace comes from your review count across the last 180 days of scans, so it appears once there are a few weeks of readings.

Tip: Reviews are one of several things Google weighs for the Map Pack, alongside relevance and distance. Treat the gap as a direction, not a promise.

Listing checks

Listing checks looks at every business that reached the top 10 in your scans over the last 90 days and flags signals worth a closer look:

Keyword-heavy business names, such as a service and a place name added to the name, promotional words like "best" or "24/7", or a phone number or web address in the name.
The same phone number used by listings with different names.
Several listings in the same category at one address.
Listings with no owner, which Google shows as not claimed.

Each listing gets one of three labels: Several signals, Worth checking or Clean. Every signal shows the words or details that triggered it, so you can judge it for yourself.

Important: These are signals, not verdicts. A name that looks keyword-heavy can be the real name on the sign. If a listing breaks Google's guidelines for representing a business, you can report it to Google.

The service and place words come from your own keywords, categories and location, so the checks work in whichever country and language you track.

Next steps

Read your geo-grid results for the detail behind a single scan.
Track your competitors and open the Changes tab to see rival listings change over time.
Schedule recurring scans so Map Insights stays current.