What do some GMB categories show "category in city"?

[Scott ClientClicks]

I was using Brightlocal to do a citation report for a client today and noticed that some categories show up as "category in city" in the Brightlocal report and also in the knowledge panel.

You can see an example if you search for "moseley collins attorney at law". You'll see in the knowledge panel that it shows Personal Injury Attorney in Sacramento California. Most of the other competitors in the local pack just show the category without the city.

Does anyone know how Google decides how to append the city name to the category?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I spoke to them about this a couple months ago and I believe it's not intended but the tool is accidentally picking it up for certain searches.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I spoke to them about this a couple months ago and I believe it's not intended but the tool is accidentally picking it up for certain searches.

Hey Joy, sounds like Bright is picking it up because it's there.

Think he's asking why Google shows the cat that way in KP:
https://www.google.com/search?q=moseley+collins+attorney+at+law&ie=UTF-8

FYI I checked and it shows as regular cat - no city - in maps and MM.

 

[Scott ClientClicks]

I searched around to find more information about this topic and found a helpful blog from Joy. (Thanks Joy) Google Adds Neighborhood Info to Knowledge Panel

Joy mentions that the city is pulled from the locality field in mapmaker which is an option in Canada and used to be an option in the USA. So maybe the "in city" mention in the KP is a relic from when that locality field was available.

I ruled out local business address markup on the landing page as being a factor. The example site MoseleyCollins.com, has multiple office locations marked up in schema, but other sites that don't show the city next to the category also have schema markup.

 

[JoyHawkins]

There are 3 options that will display in the Knowledge Panel:

1. It will list your business category + city (like "auto insurance agency in Seattle")
2. It will list your business category + state. This happens generally when the business address falls outside the city limits and technically doesn't have a city. Image example below.
3. It only lists the business category (no city or state). This one is a bit of a mystery still but I have seen it when Google is not able to properly understand the address, or other related mapping issues (ex: no street view on the listing). However, I've seen a few cases where that doesn't seem to be the case.