What 65.8 Actually Means
It means the average home care agency has a Google Business Profile that is more wrong than right.
Not wrong in the sense of false information. Wrong in the sense of incomplete. No hours. No services listed. No photos. No description. A name, an address, a phone number — and nothing else.
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, that includes service descriptions, attributes, hours, photos, Q&A, response to reviews, website link, and appointment URL. Most agencies have maybe three of those.
The average score of 65.8 is not a rounding error. It is the industry median moved by the sheer number of agencies that claimed their profile and then walked away.
The Gap Between Average and Competitive
The agencies ranking in the top three Map Pack positions in most markets score in the 80s and 90s.
That gap — from 65.8 to 85 — is not a technical challenge. It is a handful of fields that most agencies have never filled in. Hours that are actually correct. A description that uses the words families search for. Five photos that are not stock images.
The agencies in the 80s and 90s did not hire a specialist. They filled in the form.
Why the Median Is Higher Than the Average
The median of 72 being higher than the average of 65.8 tells you something about the distribution. The average is being pulled down by a long tail of profiles that were claimed and abandoned — agencies with scores in the 20s and 30s that have a name, an address, and nothing else.
The majority of agencies cluster between 65 and 80. A minority have complete profiles. A minority have effectively no profile at all.
If you are at 65, you are average. Average does not get into the Map Pack in a market where one competitor has a complete profile and 50 reviews.
The Franchise Advantage — and How to Close It
Franchise-affiliated agencies score higher on completeness than independent agencies. Not because they provide better care. Because they have a national marketing team filling in the fields across hundreds of locations simultaneously.
An independent agency competing against a franchise location is competing against a profile maintained by people whose job is to maintain it.
The way to close that gap is not to out-spend them. It is to do what their national team has already done: fill in every field, respond to reviews, and keep the profile active. Our data shows that independent agencies with completeness scores above 80 compete directly with — and often outperform — franchise locations in local Map Pack rankings.
The completeness gap is an operational problem. It is correctable in a weekend.
What to Do With This
Pull up your Google Business Profile. Count how many sections are empty or incomplete. Services. Description. Hours. Photos. Attributes. Q&A.
If you are at or below the national average of 65.8, you are losing the local search race to agencies that have simply filled in more of the form.
The Map Pack rewards completeness before it rewards anything else. An incomplete profile is not a neutral starting point — it is a signal to Google that you are not maintaining your presence.
The agencies getting found are the ones that treated their GBP like a real business asset, not a form they filled out once and forgot.
Source: HCB GBP Completeness Study — 64,380 US home care agencies, 2026. For a full breakdown of what a competitive GBP profile looks like and how to build one, see Google Local SEO for Home Care or our SEO for Home Care Agencies service.