## **🔍 Overview**

The **GBP Audit** tool inside Search Atlas benchmarks your Google Business Profile against nearby competitors to score your profile's performance. Currently, the competitors used in this benchmark are selected **automatically** based on your business location and category data. You cannot manually add or remove competitors from this benchmark at this time.

This article explains how the current benchmark works, the known limitations, and what improvements are on the way.

## **⚙️ How the Competitor Benchmark Works**

When you run a GBP Audit, Search Atlas automatically identifies competitor businesses to use as your benchmark. Here is what happens behind the scenes:

1. The system detects your business category and geographic area from your connected Google Business Profile.
2. It pulls nearby businesses that match your category to use as benchmark comparisons.
3. Your profile is then scored against those competitors across various performance metrics.

This process is fully automated and does not currently allow manual input for which businesses are included.

## **⚠️ Known Limitation: Competitors May Not Match Your Scope**

We know that some customers are seeing competitors in their benchmark that do not feel relevant — for example, businesses from a different industry or outside the intended service area. This is a known limitation of the current automated selection process.

The ability to **manually choose, add, or remove specific competitors** is not yet available. Our team is aware of this gap and is working to improve the competitor selection experience in a future update.

## **🚀 What's Coming: Manual Competitor Selection**

Our team is working to give you greater control over which businesses appear in your GBP Audit benchmark. Once improvements are released, you may be able to:

- Review the competitors currently included in your benchmark.
- Remove any businesses that are not relevant to your scope of work.
- Add specific competitors you want to benchmark against.

We will update our Knowledge Base as soon as this feature is available.

## **🛠️ What You Can Do Right Now**

While manual customization is not yet available, here are a few steps you can take to get the most accurate audit results:

- **Verify your GBP category:** Make sure your Google Business Profile has the correct primary and secondary categories set. The audit pulls competitors based on these categories, so accuracy here directly improves benchmark relevance.
- **Check your service area:** Confirm that your Google Business Profile service area settings accurately reflect the geographic region you operate in, so the system can identify the most relevant local competitors.
- **Note any irrelevant competitors:** If you notice businesses in your benchmark that seem unrelated to your industry or location, make a note of them. When manual competitor management becomes available, you will be able to remove them at that time.

If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.