How Do Veterinarians Actually Rank in the Metro Vancouver Google Map Pack Right Now?

Rankwise Lab — Market Study · August 2026

This is a Rankwise Lab Market Study — public Google search data, observed and analyzed by Rankwise, not client results. Rankwise does not have veterinary clients and does not claim to have caused anything you're about to read. Veterinary medicine is a regulated profession in British Columbia; this study makes no claims about, endorsement of, or advertising on behalf of any clinic named below — it reports what is already public on Google Maps.

Abstract

The Metro Vancouver veterinary Map Pack is more saturated than the other categories Rankwise has directly compared it against: across 216 searches in 18 cities, only 3.5% of #1 Map Pack spots — 7 of 201 — went to a clinic with fewer than 30 reviews, and 11 of 18 cities recorded zero such spots at all. The review floor is high across the board: the median review count across 596 tracked appearances is 267 — nearly four times the median Rankwise measured running the identical method on the Metro Vancouver lawyer Map Pack the same week — and 93% of tracked appearances belong to a clinic with 50 or more reviews, above the 57–60% Rankwise measured the same way in its electrician and lawyer Lab studies. Two clinics tie for the most appearances, Port Coquitlam Animal Hospital and Paw Pros Mobile Vet Nursing, each showing up in 14 of 216 searches — but at very different review counts (up to 440 for the first, up to 101 for the second), and a mobile, house-call-format clinic further down the list, Lower Mainland House Call Vet, appears 11 times on a highest tracked count of just 22.

1. The question

A veterinary clinic weighing whether local-search visibility is worth the effort wants a plain answer: how crowded is the field Google is actually showing, and what does it take to be one of the three names in the map results. This study asks that directly — across 12 common pet-owner searches (veterinarian, emergency vet, pet vaccination, spay and neuter, pet dental cleaning, animal hospital, cat veterinarian, dog veterinarian, pet surgery, veterinary clinic, exotic pet vet, mobile vet) and 18 Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley cities — who shows up, how many reviews it takes, and whether any part of the field is more open than the rest.

2. How this was measured

This study pulls from 216 keyword searches in the Rankwise Lab market-study dataset — the same collection pipeline behind our published trade studies — generated 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09 — 12 veterinary-service terms crossed against 18 cities (Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Delta, Langley, New Westminster, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, White Rock, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Pitt Meadows). Data collection used SerpAPI against live Google Maps results — the same public map results a pet owner would see. Each of the 216 searches was run FROM the city it targets — a search for "emergency vet Langley" used a Langley, BC search location — so the city figures below come directly from the search location on each row, not from parsing a clinic's street address after the fact (that inference method produced a materially incomplete result in an earlier Rankwise Lab study on a different regulated category and isn't used here).

Each of the 216 searches can surface more than one Map Pack result; 602 total listings came back, and 596 of those carried a visible review count on Google — every review-tier and median figure below is drawn from that 596.

Limits, stated upfront: this is a snapshot from 2026-07-08/09, not a trend line. There is no click, call, or booked-appointment data behind any of these numbers — appearing in the Map Pack is not the same as being chosen. 158 distinct clinics appear across the dataset; most appear once, and a single appearance carries far less weight than a pattern across a dozen searches.

3. Findings

How concentrated is the veterinary Map Pack in Metro Vancouver?

More than in most other categories Rankwise has studied, but still no single runaway name. Out of 158 distinct clinics tracked, two tie for most frequent — Port Coquitlam Animal Hospital and Paw Pros Mobile Vet Nursing, each at 14 of 216 searches (6.5%).

N = 216 keyword searches. Source: Google Maps search results, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08/09.

One pattern stands out immediately: appearance frequency here doesn't track cleanly with review count the way it does in every category. Port Coquitlam Animal Hospital (440 reviews) and Paw Pros Mobile Vet Nursing (101 reviews) tie on appearances despite a 4x review gap, and a third format — Vancouver Central Mobile Veterinary Services Inc, a house-call service — reaches 12 appearances on just 48 reviews. Mobile, house-call-format practices show up repeatedly in the top ranks of this dataset despite carrying far fewer reviews than the brick-and-mortar animal hospitals near the top of the list.

How many reviews does it take to show up?

More than almost any other category Rankwise has studied. Across 596 tracked appearances with review data, counts range from 1 to 1,200, with a median of 267. Of those 596, only 6 appearances (1%) belong to a clinic with fewer than 20 reviews, 35 (6%) sit in the 20–49 band, and 555 (93%) carry 50 or more.

N = 596 appearances where review counts were available. Source: Google Maps search results, generated 2026-07-08/09.

That 93% share at 50+ reviews is higher than the 60% Rankwise measured the same week on the Metro Vancouver lawyer Map Pack (§3 of that study) and the 57% its published electrician Lab study reported using the same review-tier method — the two other categories Rankwise can currently compare it against directly. The 267 median here is close to four times the 70 median measured on lawyers, using an identical methodology on the same 18 cities.

Is any part of the veterinary market more open than the rest?

A little, but not much, and it's concentrated in two cities. Looking only at the #1 position in each of the 216 searches (201 returned one), 7 — 3.5% — went to a clinic with fewer than 30 reviews. In Abbotsford and Langley, 2 of 11 tracked #1 spots (18%) went to a sub-30-review clinic; everywhere else, the share drops to 9% or lower, and 11 of the 18 cities recorded zero #1 spots under 30 reviews at all.

N = 201 #1-position results (of 216 searches). Source: Google Maps search results, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08/09.

This is a much flatter picture than Rankwise found running the same city-by-city breakdown on lawyers, where the most open city (Port Moody, Richmond) ran at 42%. In veterinary care, even the most open cities in this dataset — Abbotsford and Langley — sit under 1 in 5, and the majority of cities show no opening on this measure at all.

4. What this means for a clinic weighing its own Map Pack position

• This is a high-review-floor category — among the highest Rankwise has measured. 93% of tracked appearances carry 50+ reviews and the median is 267. A clinic without an extensive review history is starting further behind here than in most other categories Rankwise has studied.
• Format may matter as much as review count. Mobile, house-call clinics appear repeatedly near the top of the appearance-frequency table on a fraction of the reviews carried by brick-and-mortar competitors — Paw Pros Mobile Vet Nursing (14 appearances, 101 reviews) and Vancouver Central Mobile Veterinary Services (12 appearances, 48 reviews) both out-appear several fixed-location clinics with 3–10x more reviews. This dataset doesn't establish why, but the pattern is consistent enough to be worth naming.
• Openings exist, but they're geographically narrow. Abbotsford and Langley are the only cities in this dataset where a sub-30-review clinic took a #1 spot more than once; 11 of 18 tracked cities show no such opening at all.
• A rating above roughly 4.4 is close to universal among clinics that appear more than once. Rating alone doesn't separate the frequent names from the rest of the field in this data.

5. Limitations

This is a snapshot taken 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09, not a trend line — Map Pack positions shift over time, and this data says nothing about how stable any of these rankings are since. There is no click, call, or booked-appointment data attached to any of these appearances; appearing in the Map Pack is not the same as being chosen, and this study makes no claim about which. This study makes no before/after comparison and can't say whether any clinic's position is rising, falling, or holding steady. City-level sample sizes are small — each city carries roughly 9–12 tracked #1 results — so the city breakdown in §3 should be read as directional, not as a precise ranking of city difficulty. 158 distinct clinics appear across the full dataset; most appear only once, so the named-clinic patterns above reflect a small, high-visibility slice of a much longer tail. This study makes no claim about the quality, competence, or standard of care of any clinic named — appearance in a Map Pack search result is a visibility measure, not an endorsement, and this study neither solicits nor comments on any clinic's review-generation practices.

6. What Rankwise tracks from here

Rankwise Lab studies how local businesses show up on Google Maps across a range of local-service categories in Metro Vancouver — this is one entry in that ongoing series. Future pulls on this same keyword set will show whether the high review floor identified here holds, whether the mobile-format pattern persists, and whether the narrow city-level openings in Abbotsford and Langley widen or close. If you want to see how your own business and category look on Google right now, book a 15-minute visibility check at rankwise.ca/audit.

References

1. Google Maps search results (public), collected via SerpAPI, per-city search location, generated 2026-07-08 to 2026-07-09.
2. Data source: the Rankwise Lab market-study dataset (12 veterinarian service terms × 18 Metro Vancouver cities, collected via SerpAPI from public Google Maps results), 216 keyword snapshots, 158 distinct clinics.
3. City attribution taken directly from each row's own search-location field (the city the query was run from), not inferred from listing address text.
4. Review counts and ratings reflect values at time of snapshot and are subject to normal Google review-volatility over time.
5. This study covers a regulated profession (veterinary medicine); findings are market observations only and do not constitute advertising claims, outcome guarantees, or professional endorsements of any named clinic.