The Business Profile Performance API returns monthly search keywords per location, each with a count of unique users or a threshold when the count is below it. Classifying each term as branded (contains the brand name) or non-branded (a category, product or service) gives a per-location non-branded share — the proportion of people who found the location without knowing it. AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI assistants surface far fewer businesses than the classic local pack, which makes that share the earliest warning that a location is losing discovery.
The Performance report in Google Business Profile shows "the search terms people used to find your business". It is updated at the start of each month, can take up to five days to appear, and through the API it arrives as a list per location: each keyword with the number of unique users who searched it that month — or, for rarer terms, a threshold that says the real number is below it. Most tools show the list. Almost nobody does the one thing that makes it useful across two hundred locations: sort every term into two piles.
Two kinds of searches
Google itself drew the line when Insights still existed. In 2018 it split searches into Direct — "customers who find your listing searching for your business name or address"; Discovery — "customers who find your listing searching for a category, product, or service"; and Branded — customers who searched for "a brand related to your business". The current Performance report dropped the labels and shows raw terms instead. The distinction did not stop mattering; it stopped being computed for you.
Branded
- "kestrel basel", "kestrel öffnungszeiten", "kestrel auto service telefon".
- People who already know you. Demand you created elsewhere — signage, referrals, last year's service.
- Tells you the profile works as a front door: hours, phone, directions.
Non-branded
- "garage near me", "reifenwechsel basel", "car service open saturday".
- People who did not know you existed. Google's Relevance and Prominence, working in your favour.
- The share of these is the closest thing to a discovery rate the profile can give you.
How to compute it for 200 locations
Monthly keywords per location
locations.searchkeywords.impressions.monthly.list, up to 100 keywords per page, one call per location per month. Threshold rows are counted at their threshold value and marked, so a location with many rare terms is not mistaken for one with none.
Brand tokens, with the misspellings
A term is branded if it contains any token from the brand list: the brand, its abbreviations, the way customers actually type it ("kestrl"). Everything else is non-branded. The list is maintained per brand, once.
Non-branded share per location
Non-branded impressions divided by all keyword impressions, per location, per month. Two hundred numbers, one line each.
Within the brand, not against a benchmark
There is no published benchmark worth trusting, and none is needed: the same brand's locations, with the same categories and the same signage, are the control group. The spread between the best and the worst location is the finding.
Month over month
The share moves slowly, which is the point: a location whose non-branded share drops for two months has lost something — a category, a review stream, a competitor opened next door — before its total impressions show it.
Why this is the number for the LLM era
Every new surface Google and the assistants have shipped shows fewer businesses than the last one. Whitespark measured AI Overviews on 68% of local-business queries in 2025, but on only 15% of queries with pure local intent — and where they appeared, the local pack still showed for 93%. Sterling Sky's 2026 count is starker: AI-powered local packs show one or two businesses instead of three, and across 322 markets they featured 5,943 unique businesses against 18,330 in regular three-packs — about a third as many.
And the assistants agree with nobody
SOCi's 2026 index found 1.2% of locations recommended by ChatGPT and 11.0% by Gemini, against 35.9% appearing in a Google three-pack. A study of 1,487 local queries found Gemini and ChatGPT recommended the same top business 4.2% of the time, and that AI-recommended businesses had essentially the same star rating as everyone else. Being found by a stranger is getting rarer and less predictable, and non-branded impressions on Google are the only monthly, per-location measure of it you can get from the source.
Reading the number
| Pattern | What it usually means | First action |
|---|---|---|
| High branded, low non-branded | Known name, weak category relevance | Check the primary and additional categories, the services list and the description against the best location's. |
| Low branded, low non-branded | Visibility problem, not a brand problem | Verify the pin, the categories and the hours; look for a Google update that changed something. |
| High non-branded, falling | Something moved: a competitor, a lost category, a review drought | Read the last month's reviews and replies; check the review count trend. |
| High non-branded, stable | The location discovery works | Protect it — hours confirmed for every holiday, replies within a day. |
Desktop and mobile, Maps and Search — summed for the total.
Updated at the start of the month, up to five days late.
Counted at the threshold, flagged as such.
What the SEO · GEO · LLM Agent does with it
It computes the share every month for every location, ranks the locations, and turns the gap between a location and its brand's best into an ordered list of actions with an expected effect — complete the description, add the missing category, answer the two open review threads. In parallel it asks the assistants the same non-branded questions each week — "reifenwechsel basel", "garage open saturday near me" — and logs whether the location is named. The two numbers together, non-branded share on Google and mentions by the assistants, are the closest this product comes to a visibility score, and we prefer them to a score precisely because both are counts you can check yourself.
Questions we get on this
What is a branded search in Google Business Profile?
A search that includes the business's name or brand, such as 'kestrel basel'. Google's former Insights report distinguished Direct searches (business name or address) and Branded searches (a related brand) from Discovery searches for a category, product or service. The current Performance report shows raw search terms, so the classification has to be done by the business or its tool.
Why do some search terms show a threshold instead of a number?
The Business Profile Performance API returns, for each monthly keyword, either the number of unique users who searched it or a threshold indicating the real number is below that value. Google does not publish exact counts for rare terms. When aggregating, count such terms at the threshold and mark them, so locations with many rare terms are not mis-read.
How often does Google Business Profile search-term data update?
Monthly. Google's help page states the searches metric is updated at the start of each month and can take up to five days to appear. Daily metrics such as impressions, calls and website clicks are available per day through the Performance API, with multiple impressions by one user in a day counted once.
What is a good ratio of branded to non-branded impressions?
There is no reliable published benchmark, and the ratio depends on the category and the brand's reputation. The useful comparison is between locations of the same brand: the spread between the best and worst location's non-branded share, and each location's month-over-month trend, identifies where discovery is weak.
Do AI assistants use my Google Business Profile?
Google's AI Mode and Ask Maps are grounded in Google Maps and profile data, and SOCi's 2026 analysis found business information 100% accurate on Gemini versus about 68% on ChatGPT and Perplexity. AI surfaces show fewer businesses than the classic local pack, which is why a location's non-branded share on Google is an early indicator of whether strangers can still find it.
Sources
- Google Help — Performance: how customers found and interacted with your profile
- Google — Performance API: searchkeywords.impressions.monthly.list
- Google — Performance API: DailyMetric
- Search Engine Land — Google My Business Insights adds branded search reporting (2018)
- Whitespark — The prevalence of AI Overviews in local search (May 2025)
- Sterling Sky — The state of local SEO in 2026 (Jun 2026)
- SOCi — Local Visibility Index 2026 benchmarks
- Steady Demand — AI citation ledger (Aug 2026)
- Search Engine Land — SOCi AI local visibility report 2026
- Google Help — How to improve your local ranking