About categories in Apple Business
Brand categories help customers discover your Point Of Interest (POI) with an icon in Apple Maps and tell them what your brand and location 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 each brand location page 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 that brand and location.
If you can’t find an appropriate category, reach out to Apple Business Support.
Category types
There are three types of categories in Apple Business:
Brand primary category: Your primary category should describe the main function of your brand, and it’s essential for helping ensure accurate search results. The primary category of the brand can also be different from the primary category of a location under that brand, but it needs to closely reflect the main function of that specific location so that it’s in line with the brand. The 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 that brand or location.
For example, if you own one Indian restaurant, you can be broad enough to cover all your offerings by choosing Indian cuisine as the primary category.
Brand additional categories: Additional categories can further refine your brand. 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 brand. You can add up to 19 additional categories to both a brand and its location.
For example, if you own one Indian restaurant, you can use additional categories such as South Asian cuisine, or you can be more specific by choosing Bengali cuisine, Chaat restaurant, Dhaba or many others.
A location’s primary category: A location’s primary category needs to match the brands primary category or an additional category.
For example, if you own several Indian restaurants, you might want to make the primary category of one location Chaat restaurant, which should be one of your brand’s additional categories.
Update categories
Depending on your organization type, categories can be updated on both the brand and the location pages. When you update a primary category, it:
Needs to be approved by Apple.
Does impact map pin icons of locations associated with the brand.
May impact search behavior.
May impact the zoom level.
To change the primary or additional categories of the brand, go to the brand page. If you’re updating the primary category, you’ll be notified of all locations affected before you confirm your update.
To change the primary or additional categories of a location, go to that location’s page.
Remove categories
Primary category
Primary categories can’t be removed on a brand or location level.
Additional categories
Additional categories can be removed from both a brand and its locations profiles. You can remove additional categories through the brand or location categories page by selecting “-” next to the field with the unwanted category. Removing additional categories doesn’t require approval from Apple.