What causes the GMB panel to show up in a search?

[Barb Davids]

Having some trouble piecing together some information.

Is there anything outside of proximity and search terms that cause a business to show up in the map pack?

What fields does Google use for matching search queries with results?

Is searching on a business name the only way for the panel to appear?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Yan Gilbert]

Those are interesting questions, however I think some of the answer would be in Google's secret sauce recipe and it will be difficult to provide specifics.

Most of the time I've seen the one box Knowledge Panel show up when the query exactly matches, or very closely matches the business name. The proximity is relative to the number of competitors in the area. Sometimes a one box displays when the query doesn't match the business listing name, but usually it's because there are no other business nearby (or not well optimized businesses) that match the query. Pretty sure the category will also affect this as well. I don't have any examples to share at the moment, but I will try to get some to add to the conversation.

 

[Tim Colling]

This (what @Yan Gilbert said) ⬆⬆