Google Maps attributesexplained: the yes or no facts on every profile
Attributes describe what a business has and does, not what it is. Here is a clear, citable definition and how to capture them at scale.
Database··7 min read
Key takeaways
Attributes are structured yes or no facts on a business profile: wheelchair accessible entrance, offers delivery, free Wi-Fi, women owned
A category says what a business is; an attribute says what it has or does. One place has one primary category but many attributes
Attributes are gold for targeting and personalization, and a free browser extension turns them into a filterable, mapped database
The definition
What are Google Maps attributes?
Google Maps attributes are structured, mostly yes or no facts about a business that describe its amenities, services, accessibility, and identity. Examples include "wheelchair accessible entrance," "offers takeout," "accepts credit cards," "free Wi-Fi," and "women owned." They live on the Google Business Profile and are shown to searchers as small labels, chips, or checkmarks on the place panel.
An owner sets most attributes from the profile dashboard, while Google infers or crowdsources others (for instance, "popular for dinner" or accessibility notes contributed by visitors). Google documents the available fields for business owners in its Business Profile attributes help center, and the machine-readable versions surface through the Places API as boolean fields.
The important idea: an attribute is a fact about a place, not a description of the place type. That single distinction is what makes attributes so useful for prospecting and segmentation.
Capture attributes as you browse
The Vonsel Chrome extension reads the visible profile data on Google Maps and stores it in a mapped dashboard, ready to filter and export.
People confuse attributes with categories because both live on the profile and both look like tags. They are not the same thing. A category answers "what is this business," while an attribute answers "what does this business have or offer." The table below makes the split concrete.
Field
Answers
Example
How many per place
Primary category
What the business is
Dentist
One
Additional categories
Other things it also is
Cosmetic dentist
A few
Attribute
What it has or does
Wheelchair accessible entrance
Many
Attribute
Payment or service fact
Accepts new patients
Many
Attribute
Identity fact
Women owned
Many
So a dental clinic has one primary category (Dentist) but can carry a dozen attributes: accepts new patients, wheelchair accessible restroom, has parking, offers online appointments. For a fuller picture of the other properties on a listing, see our guide to Google Maps data fields explained.
1
primary category per business, always
Many
attributes can stack on a single profile
Bool
most attributes are simple true or false values
The main groups
How attributes are organized
Google groups attributes into a handful of practical buckets. The exact labels vary by business type (a restaurant has "outdoor seating," a hotel has "free breakfast"), but the buckets stay consistent. Knowing them helps you decide which attributes matter for your outreach.
These groups are why attributes beat a plain address list for sales targeting. If you sell online booking software, "accepts reservations" is a buying signal. If you build accessible ramps, the absence of "wheelchair accessible entrance" is a lead. Attributes turn a directory into a set of qualified segments.
An attribute is a filter you did not have to build. "Restaurants with no online ordering" or "clinics not accepting credit cards" are precise, ready-made prospect lists hiding inside the profile data most people ignore.
Why they matter for sales
Attributes are the means, action is the end
Reading attributes on one profile is easy. The value shows up when you have them for hundreds of businesses and can slice by them. That is where the extension is the tool and the Vonsel dashboard is the payoff. As you browse Google Maps, the extension captures the visible data, and each business lands in a mapped CRM where attributes become filters, tags, and personalization inputs.
From there, the dashboard does the heavy lifting. Reviews Intelligence reads the review text for pain points, Sales Intelligence scores the lead, and Email Intelligence drafts an AI email tailored to each business. An attribute like "no online ordering" becomes the exact opening line of the pitch. Raw data describes a place; a value-added database tells you why to call and what to say.
This is also the difference between a scraped CSV and a value-added database. You can re-open a previous capture to add more businesses, attach fresh reviews to profiles you already saved, and enrich websites for emails and phone numbers the map panel never shows.
Turn attributes into a filterable list
Browse, capture, and let the mapped dashboard segment your leads by the exact attributes that signal a sale.
Not every business fills them in. A missing attribute often means the owner never set it, which itself can be a prospecting signal.
They vary by category
A restaurant sees dining attributes; a salon sees service attributes. Google shows only the fields relevant to the primary category.
They change over time
Owners update attributes as they add services. This is why data freshness matters for a lead list.
They are business facts
Attributes describe the business, not a named person, which is worth remembering when you read our legal overview.
A category tells you who to look at. An attribute tells you who to call first
Where attributes come from
Owner-set, inferred, and crowdsourced
Attributes reach a profile in three ways. Owners set most of them directly. Google infers some from behavior and listings signals (for example "popular for breakfast"). And visitors contribute a subset, especially accessibility details that Google surfaces through Local Guides. The Places API exposes many of these as boolean fields, which you can read about in the Google Places API data fields reference.
You do not need the API to work with attributes, though. A browser-based approach reads what is already rendered on the page, which sidesteps the cost and quota of the Places API. If you want the deeper background, our explainer on what Google Maps scraping is covers how visible data becomes a structured record.
However you collect them, treat attributes as the entry point. They tell you which businesses fit and which have a gap you can sell into. The rest of the workflow, from segmenting to writing the first message, is where the mapped CRM and its intelligence layers do the work.
Ready to build a database around the right attributes?
Capture businesses and their attributes as you browse, then let the dashboard filter and personalize. Explore features or see the plans.
Google Maps attributes are structured yes or no facts about a business, such as wheelchair accessible entrance, offers delivery, free Wi-Fi, or accepts credit cards. They sit on the Google Business Profile and describe the amenities, services, and accessibility of a place rather than what kind of business it is.
How are attributes different from categories?
A category tells you what a business is (dentist, restaurant, plumber). An attribute tells you what a business has or does (offers takeout, has outdoor seating, is women owned). One place has a single primary category but can carry dozens of attributes.
Can you export Google Maps attributes for many businesses at once?
Yes. A browser based tool like the Vonsel Chrome extension reads the visible profile data as you browse and sends it to a mapped dashboard, where the businesses are stored with their attributes and can be filtered, enriched, and exported to CSV, XLSX, or JSON.
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