Updated
Short answer: your main category should be whatever finishes the sentence "this business IS a" for the bulk of your nights. If most of your sites are serviced and the guests arrive towing, that's an RV park. If your nights are mostly tents and cabins with a few hookups, that's a campground. The other word goes in as an extra category, and the list after that stays short. Google says the categories you pick affect where you show up locally, so it's worth checking in the off-season.
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The setting lives on your Google Business Profile, the listing that carries your name, photos, hours and reviews on Google Maps and in search results. The category is the part that says what kind of place you are. It works a bit like the sign at the highway exit: campground and motel send two different drivers down the ramp.
I don't run a park, so I can't tell you which label fits yours. What I can do is show you the test Google publishes, how to check yours, and how to read what the parks around you have chosen.
What the category on your listing actually does
You don't write it. Google's help page says you can't create your own category, so you pick from the list that shows up when you type in the picker. Its advice is to select a primary category that best describes your business, and to make it a specific one from that list.
Its guidelines page pushes harder in the same direction. Use as few categories as you can to describe your core business, and make the ones you do pick as specific as possible while still representing the main thing you do. Google adds that it links the broader categories on its own. Its example is a golf resort: pick "Golf Resort" and Google quietly includes "Resort Hotel", "Hotel" and "Golf Course" for you. So you don't have to go claiming the general ones yourself.
The same page also says what the category is not for. Don't use categories as keywords, don't pick one to describe a feature you have, and don't add one that belongs to a business nearby.
Campground or RV park: how I'd decide
Use the sentence Google gives you: this business IS a, not this business HAS a. A campground that has twelve full-hookup sites is still a campground. An RV park that has a tent meadow behind the bathhouse is still an RV park.
Use the sentence Google gives you: this business IS a, not this business HAS a.
Here are the two guests those labels describe.
| Question | Campground | RV park |
|---|---|---|
| Who pictures themselves there | A two-person tent in a hatchback | A forty-foot fifth wheel in tow |
| Make it your main one when | Tent and cabin sites are the bulk of your nights, with a few hookups | Serviced sites are the bulk of your nights |
| Who may not recognize the label | RV travellers searching for the words "RV park" | Tent campers searching for the word "campground" |
| The IS test | "This business IS a campground" | "This business IS an RV park" |
Count your nights, not your sites. Site 14 with a pull-through pad and a 50-amp post books forty nights a season; a walk-in tent site by the creek might book twelve. The bulk of what happens on your property is what decides the label.
If you're genuinely split, pick the one that describes the bigger share, note the date you changed it, and know you can change it back. Google's page adds one thing to expect: if you add or edit a category, you might be asked to verify your business again. That's a postcard or a phone call, and it's a reason to do this in October rather than the Friday of a long weekend.
Then add a few others for what you really offer and can finish the IS sentence with: cabin rentals, a marina, glamping. Keep that list short. Google asks for as few as possible, and a list that oversells you brings phone calls you'd rather not take.
How to see what other parks near you use
Yours is in your Google Business Profile, under the business information, with the main category first.
For anyone else, search the park on Google Maps and read the short line under the business name. Treat that as a hint at how they're filed rather than proof. Google's category page doesn't say that line is the main category, so I won't either.
Spend ten minutes reading the labels on the parks that come up above you for the search you care about. Here's the order I'd do it in:
- Search the phrase a camper would use, with your town in it, on Maps.
- Write down the short label under each of the first five parks.
- Open your own listing and write down your main category beside them.
- Circle any park whose label doesn't match what you know they run.
If four of the five say RV park and you say campground, that's useful to know. It doesn't prove Google prefers one word. It does tell you what the parks in your market call themselves, which is worth knowing before you decide what you are.
Labels that look right and aren't
The picker is a search box, and the first result that looks close isn't always the one you want. Run the IS test on each one before you accept it. Three kinds of entry to read carefully, whatever the exact wording in front of you:
- Anything with "mobile home" in it. That describes people living somewhere, not travelling. A park with a long-term section can drift into it because it sounds true of part of the operation.
- Anything with "camp" that means a program. Summer camps and kids' camps are supervised programs. Renting sites to families is a different business.
- Anything with "resort" in it. Google's own example treats a resort as a hotel with extras. If your sites don't come with a building, that label promises more than you deliver.
Type the words your campers use, and read the whole list before you accept anything.
After you change it
Change one thing at a time and write down the date. If you switch your main category, add three more and rewrite your description on the same afternoon, you'll never know which one did what.
Look again in a month or two. Google's help page on editing places in Maps says anyone can add, edit or report a place's category, and that Google reviews every edit before it shows. So a setting you chose can move later, the same way your hours can.
There's more on what's worth fixing at the same time on the independent campgrounds page. Once the label is right, getting reviews before campers leave is a good next job, and if the category looks wrong on a listing you don't control, it may be a second listing for your park. If you'd rather somebody just looked at yours and told you, email hello@campgroundseo.com with your park name and where you are, and I'll read the labels for you. I'm Christopher Ross, in Fort Erie, Ontario; the parks I look at are anywhere in Canada or the U.S.
Sources
Checked against Google's Business Profile help pages on 2026-09-21: Manage your business category, Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Edit place information in Google Maps
Common questions
Are campground and RV park the same thing on Google?
Not on the pages I checked, which don't list either word. The picker is the only current list, and one minute typing each word into it settles what your account is offered today.
What if I run seasonal sites as well as overnight ones?
The IS test still applies to the whole property. A park that is mainly seasonal RV sites on a lease finishes the sentence as an RV park, and the overnight loop is one of the things it has.
How many other categories can I add?
Google doesn't give a number. It says not to add one for every product or service, and its golf-resort example shows it fills in the broader ones itself.
Do I need to re-verify after changing the category?
Google's page says you might be asked to. Plan for a postcard or a call before the change sticks, which is another reason to do it in the off-season.
Will a category change move where I rank?
Google's category page says the categories you select affect your local ranking. It doesn't say how much or how fast, so change one thing, note the date, and look again in a month or two.
Canadian? The same three sizes in Canadian dollars are on the CAD pricing page.