Why it matters on an HVAC site
Attributes and services are different fields and are routinely conflated. Judging a contractor’s profile on its attribute block alone will understate it, because the services catalogue is where the trade detail lives.
Which attributes are offered depends on the primary category, so changing the category changes the available set. An audit taken before a category change is not valid after it.
How to check it yourself
- Enumerate every attribute Google offers for that category and mark each as set or unset, rather than counting what is present.
- Keep the count separate from the services count and label both.
- Re-check after any category change, since the offered set moves.
Worked through in numbers
A contractor profile shows 4 attributes set. The audit it came with recorded that as "profile 4/10 complete".
Enumerating what Google actually offered for the category produced 17 attributes, of which 4 were owner-settable and already set, and 13 were derived by Google. Separately, the services field had 3 of 41 populated.
The profile was not 40% complete on attributes. It was fully complete on the attributes the owner controlled and almost empty on services, which was the field that mattered and the one the audit had not looked at.
Where this sits in the rankings
Scored under Local SEO. The structured checkboxes on a profile, and why they are not the same field as services.