We scored the Google Business Profiles of 64,380 home care agencies across the United States. The average completeness score is 65.8 out of 100. The median is 72. One in three agencies has zero reviews. Most agencies are leaving their most important local search asset half-finished.
Key Findings
- Average GBP completeness score: 65.8 / 100 across 64,380 US home care agencies
- Median score: 72 / 100 — the distribution skews low, pulled down by a long tail of incomplete profiles
- 34.9% of agencies have zero Google reviews — no ratings, no social proof, no signal to families or to Google
- The majority of incomplete profiles are missing the same fields: services, business description, and photos
- Franchise-affiliated agencies score higher on average than independent agencies — not because of better care, but because they have marketing infrastructure that fills in the form
What the Completeness Score Measures
Google's completeness score reflects how much of a Business Profile has been filled in relative to what Google makes available. For a home care agency, the fields that contribute to completeness include:
- Primary and secondary business categories — the most important field for local relevance
- Service area — the cities and ZIP codes you serve
- Business hours — including holiday hours
- Services — each service listed individually with a name and description
- Business description — up to 750 characters, written for the family searching, not for Google
- Photos — Google weights profiles with recent photos more heavily in local rankings
- Posts — active profiles with recent posts outperform dormant ones
- Reviews — volume and recency both factor into Map Pack ranking position
Missing any of these leaves a measurable gap. Leaving several missing places a profile in the bottom half of a competitive market.
Score Distribution
The average of 65.8 and median of 72 tell two different stories. The median being higher than the average means the distribution skews left — a significant number of agencies have very low scores pulling the average down. These are profiles that were claimed and abandoned: a name, an address, a phone number, and nothing else.
For a home care agency competing in a market with several active competitors, a score of 65.8 is not competitive. It is average. Average does not get into the Map Pack in markets where one or two competitors have complete profiles and 50+ reviews.
The agencies ranking in the top three Map Pack positions in most markets score in the 80s and 90s. The gap between the average agency (65.8) and a top-ranked agency (85+) is not a technical challenge. It is a handful of fields that most agencies have never filled in.
The Reviews Problem
34.9% of home care agencies have zero Google reviews.
A family searching "home care near me" sees three agencies in the Map Pack. Two have reviews — 47 and 23, respectively. One has none. The agency with no reviews does not get the call. Not because the care is worse. Because there is no evidence it isn't.
Reviews serve two purposes: they signal trustworthiness to families, and they signal relevance to Google. Agencies with consistent, recent reviews rank higher and convert better than agencies without them. The two outcomes are not separable.
The agencies with strong review counts are not receiving more reviews organically. They are asking. Specifically, they are asking after a good moment — after a caregiver's first successful month, after a client milestone, after a family says something positive on a care call. That moment is the ask. Most agencies let it pass without asking.
What a Complete Profile Looks Like
A complete GBP profile for a home care agency includes:
- Primary category set to Home Health Care Service or In-Home Care Service — not a generic category like "Health Care Provider"
- Five or more secondary categories: companion care, Alzheimer's care, dementia care, post-surgical care, respite care
- Service area covering every city and ZIP code served
- Accurate hours updated for holidays
- At least 20 photos — office, team, caregivers
- A business description written in the language families search: "in-home care," "elderly care," "non-medical home care," the city or region name
- Every service listed individually with a name, description, and price range where applicable
- A post published within the last 30 days
- A minimum of 10 reviews with an average of 4.0 or higher
Most agencies meet two or three of these criteria. Few meet all of them. The ones that do are the ones showing up in the Map Pack.
Why This Matters for Independent Agencies
Franchise networks have a structural advantage in GBP completeness: their marketing infrastructure fills in these fields across hundreds of locations simultaneously. An independent agency competing against a Comfort Keepers or Home Instead location is competing against a profile maintained by a national marketing team.
The way an independent agency closes that gap is not by out-spending the franchise. It is by doing what the franchise location's national team has already done: filling in every field, asking for reviews consistently, and maintaining the profile actively. The franchise advantage disappears when an independent agency has a complete profile and the franchise location doesn't.
Our data shows that independent agencies with complete profiles — scores above 80 — compete directly with and often outperform franchise locations in local Map Pack rankings. The completeness gap is not a structural disadvantage. It is an operational one, and it is correctable.
Methodology
We analyzed 64,380 home care agencies across the United States using Google Business Profile data collected in 2026. Agencies were identified through a combination of Google Maps category searches, state licensing databases, and home care directory aggregators. Completeness scores were calculated against the full set of available GBP fields for the Home Health Care Service and In-Home Care Service categories. Review data reflects public Google review counts at time of collection.
If your agency is in the majority of profiles below 80, the gap between where you are and where you need to be is operational, not structural. Our SEO work for home care agencies starts with a full GBP audit — every field, every category, every missing signal — and builds from there.