@darrenshawseo

I'm gonna go on record saying that this might be one of the most important articles of 2026 Claudia Tomina uh wrote an article on search engine Claudia again Yana good job Claudia she wrote an article on Search Engine Land called The Local SEO Gatekeeper how Google def finds your entity so the idea here is that before any rankings happen Google determines eligibility and and we kind of mostly thought about eligibility

from your primary category right so if someone searches for towing company Denver Google's not gonna throw people that have a primary category of dentist into those search results right so you are you eligible to rank for towing company if you were both a combination towing company and dentist then maybe but I don't think that exists the uh the idea that she proposes here is that it's a combination of your primary

category plus your business name we know that business name has a big impact on rankings and this is a great example of how the combination of the two really determines your eligibility and she presents a great example so if you search for kids dance lessons then you are going to see a number of businesses in the results that have primary categories like dance company but then if you just search dance

lessons those businesses do not come up they are stricken from eligibility because they have tiny tots is one of them I think or tippy toes tippy toes Which Google is pulling as sort of like, that's a kidsy thing.

And then the other one actually has kids in the name. And so it's, it's, this is a great example to demonstrate that what you put in your name combines with your primary category to determine your eligibility to even rank.