Add categories in Apple Business Connect
Categories help customers discover your Point Of Interest (POI) with an icon in Apple Maps and tell them what your business is about. When you choose categories that accurately reflect your offerings, you increase your chances of attracting relevant customers.
Important: Recently, as part of regular updates to categories, Apple significantly increased the number of top-level categories and subcategories to better fit with the behavior and expectation of customers using the search feature in Maps. It’s a good idea to go to your business and location categories pages now, and make sure your categories are accurate, because they may have changed. At the same time, you might see whether there’s a category that better fits your Business.
If you can’t find an appropriate category, reach out to Apple Business Connect Support.
Add categories
The primary category describes your overall business function, and it’s essential for helping ensure accurate search results. For example, if you have an Indian restaurant, you can be broad enough to cover all your offerings by choosing the categories South Asian cuisine or Indian cuisine, or you can be more specific by choosing Bengali cuisine, Chaat restaurant, Dhaba or many others.
Your primary category also determines what “Good to Know” attributes are available to you in a list of amenities, facilities, and experiences you’d like to associate with your business.
Primary category
Small Business
If you manage a small- or medium-size company, your business primary category is the same for all locations associated with that business. It describes the main function of a business, appears on all its locations’ Place Cards and determines their icon on Maps.
Note: If you have a small business with only one location, you can only change the primary category on the location profile, unless you have more than one location, there is no business profile.
Enterprise
If you manage an Enterprise, your business primary category should describe the main function of one or more of your businesses. The primary category of the business can be different from the primary category of the location under that business, but it must closely reflect the main function of that specific location so that it’s in line with the business.
Additional categories
Additional categories can further refine your business profile. They should complement your primary category and provide specific insights into the services or products you offer, or be in line with additional functions of your business.
You can add up to four additional categories to both a business and its location.
Update categories
Categories can be edited on both the location and the business levels depending on your company type.
Small Business
If you manage a small- or medium-size company, your business primary category is the same for all locations associated with that business. To change the primary category of the business, go to the business category page. When you do, new business primary category appears for all locations associated with that business. To change the primary category of a location, go to the business profile.
Note: If you have a small business with only one location, you can only change the primary category on the location profile, because unless you have more than one location, there’s no business profile.
Enterprise
Enterprise companies can update their business and location primary categories independently. You can change categories through the business or location categories pages, depending on your needs.
Additional categories
On both business and location profiles, you can add up to four additional categories. These categories can be updated if necessary.
Remove categories
Primary category
Primary categories can’t be removed on a business or location level.
Additional categories
Additional categories can be removed from both a business and its locations profiles.
You can remove additional categories through the business or location categories page by selecting “-” next to the field with the unwanted category.
Categories added via API
Companies may see more than four additional categories in Apple Business Connect if their Third-Party Partner adds them through the Apple Business Connect API.
Add more than four additional categories: You can’t add additional categories through the Business Connect portal if you already have four additional categories.
Update more than four additional categories: You can update these additional categories through the Business Connect portal.
Remove more than four additional categories: You can remove additional categories, but you can’t add those extra category slots through the Apple Business Connect portal. If your Third-Party Partner added more than four additional categories through the Apple Business Connect API and you want to update one of those, don’t remove it. Instead, update the field with the unwanted category and save the changes.