Kathmandu businesses on Google: what we found in 533 Maps listings and 40 searches

A lot of the marketing advice used in Nepal is borrowed from other countries: global statistics, foreign case studies, tips written for markets that look nothing like Kathmandu. We wanted to see what’s actually true here.

So on 21 October 2026, we checked how Kathmandu businesses appear on Google across five trades: education consultancies, travel and hotels, clinics, online shops and software companies. We looked at 533 Google Maps listings, 40 searches a customer might type, and how fast a sample of these businesses’ websites load on a phone. This page has every result, the method and the limits. We use these numbers in our guides, and anyone is welcome to use them with a link back.

The short answer

• Reviews separate the top of Maps from the rest. Listings in Maps positions 1 to 10 had a median of 126.5 reviews. Those at positions 21 to 40 had 57.5.
• Star ratings don’t. 81% of rated listings showed 4.5 stars or more. A 4.8 is normal.
• Businesses’ own websites still win Google in Nepal. In 34 of 40 customer searches, the first result was a business’s own website, not a directory, marketplace or Facebook page.
• Clinics are the most behind online. 38% of clinic listings had no website linked, the most of any trade.
• Most business websites are slow on a phone. In Google’s Lighthouse mobile test, 105 of 115 sites took over 4 seconds to show their main content, which Google rates as poor.

Part 1: 533 businesses on Google Maps

For each trade, we searched Google Maps three times and read up to 40 results each time, then removed duplicates.

* Hotel listings on Google show check-in and check-out times rather than opening hours. Leaving out the 25 hotel listings without hours, 76 of the 77 travel and trekking listings listed their hours.

Reviews and position

The further down the list, the fewer reviews. Within the top ten the pattern is less tidy (the top three had a median of 110, positions 4 to 10 had 129), which is what you’d expect when distance from the searcher also counts. Google says local results are based mainly on “relevance, distance, and popularity”, and that “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.”

The gap is widest in clinics and software: positions 1 to 10 had medians of 109.5 and 79.5 reviews, positions 21 to 40 had 29 and 22.

Ratings

Of 529 listings with a rating, 427 (81%) were 4.5 stars or higher and only 36 were below 4.0. When almost everyone looks excellent, the star rating stops telling customers apart. The number of reviews, and what they say, does.

Names

Google’s guidelines say a business name “should reflect your business’s real-world name”, and that adding unnecessary information could get a profile suspended. In our 533 listings, 25 names included “best” or “top”, and 42 added a place, like “in Kathmandu”. Some of these may be genuine names; we can’t tell from outside.

Part 2: who Google shows customers

For each trade we ran eight searches a customer might type, from Kathmandu, and labelled every result on the first page.

“Business websites” means a business’s own site; the rest were social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram, some YouTube and Reddit), marketplaces and booking sites (such as Daraz, Booking.com, TripAdvisor), directories and lists, and a handful of official, news and reference pages.

Two findings matter most:

• In Nepal, your own website can still win. Businesses’ own sites took 70% of all results and the top spot in 34 of 40 searches. Directories, marketplaces and social pages shared the rest.
• Travel is the exception. Booking and review sites took 17 of 78 results, more than any other trade. And foreign travellers see different results again: we also checked six trekking searches from the US, UK and Australia, covered in our travel agency SEO guide.

Part 3: how fast the websites are on a phone

We took the websites linked from the Maps listings (their own sites only, not Facebook pages or marketplaces), drew a fixed random sample of 25 per trade, and ran each through Lighthouse, the test behind Google’s PageSpeed Insights, with Google’s default mobile settings: a mid-range phone on a slow mobile connection. 115 of the 125 sites gave a result; 10 didn’t load in the test.

What the numbers mean:

• The score. Google’s Lighthouse rates 90 to 100 as good, 50 to 89 as needing improvement and below 50 as poor. The median site scored 56, and only 5 of 115 reached 90.
• The main content. Google’s guidance says the largest thing on the screen should appear within 2.5 seconds, and calls over 4 seconds poor. In this test, 105 of 115 sites (91%) took longer than 4 seconds. The median was 9.2 seconds.
• The weight. Half the sites were over 3.4 MB, and 39 were over 5 MB. Education sites were the heaviest, with a median of 6.2 MB.

To be fair to these sites: this is a lab test on a deliberately slow phone and connection, from Kathmandu, one run each. Real visitors on fast Wi-Fi will often see better. But plenty of customers in Nepal browse on mobile data, and the test is the same one Google offers every site owner for free.

What it means for your business

• Ask every customer for a review, every week, not just the ones you expect to be happy (Google’s rules forbid picking only happy customers). It’s the clearest difference between the top and the bottom of Maps, and it’s free. Our local SEO guide shows how.
• Don’t add keywords to your business name. It risks the whole profile.
• Build the website. Customers in Nepal still land on businesses’ own sites. Clinics and shops, especially, are leaving that space open.
• Make it fast on a phone. 91% of the sites we tested took over 4 seconds to show their main content on a test phone. Our guide to website traffic with no leads explains why speed costs enquiries.
• Let customers pay on the site. When we read the same websites again on 24 October 2026, only 10 of 108 named any way to pay online. Our payment gateway guide for Nepal has the full count and the options.

For your trade: education consultancies · travel and trekking · clinics · online shops · software companies.

Method and limits

When: all data was collected on 21 October 2026.

Google Maps (Part 1). Three searches per trade, read through a search-data service set to Nepal, with the map centred on central Kathmandu at valley-wide zoom: first two pages (up to 40 results) per search.

• Education: “education consultancy in kathmandu”, “study abroad consultancy in putalisadak”, “ielts institute in kathmandu”.
• Travel: “travel agency in kathmandu”, “trekking agency in thamel”, “hotel in thamel”.
• Clinics: “dental clinic in kathmandu”, “skin clinic in kathmandu”, “eye clinic in kathmandu”.
• Shops: “online shopping store in kathmandu”, “electronics store in kathmandu”, “clothing store in kathmandu”.
• Software: “software company in kathmandu”, “it company in lalitpur”, “mobile app development company in kathmandu”.

We recorded each listing’s public rating, number of reviews, and whether it listed a website, phone and hours, then removed duplicates (533 different businesses). Position figures use every result in its own search (586), including 17 that repeated a business already shown higher in the same search. “hotel in thamel” returned 26 results, not 40.

Google search (Part 2). Eight customer searches per trade on Google Nepal, located in Kathmandu, first page of organic results (392 results in all). Each result’s website was labelled by type, and every “business website” was checked by hand. Ads and the map box were not counted.

• Education: study in australia from nepal, ielts classes in kathmandu, best education consultancy in nepal, study in uk consultancy kathmandu, japanese language institute in kathmandu, pte classes in kathmandu, study in canada from nepal, korean language class kathmandu.
• Travel: everest base camp trek cost, annapurna circuit trek package, travel agency in kathmandu, hotel in thamel, kathmandu tour package, poon hill trek from pokhara, langtang valley trek, chitwan safari package.
• Clinics: dental clinic in kathmandu, skin clinic in kathmandu, hair transplant in kathmandu, eye hospital in kathmandu, physiotherapy in kathmandu, dental implant cost in nepal, laser hair removal in kathmandu, ivf center in kathmandu.
• Shops: buy laptop online nepal, mobile price in nepal, online clothing store nepal, buy shoes online nepal, skincare products online nepal, gift delivery in kathmandu, electronics shop in kathmandu, buy furniture online nepal.
• Software: software company in nepal, mobile app development company in nepal, hospital management software nepal, school management software nepal, accounting software in nepal, erp software nepal, pos software nepal, hr software nepal.

Searches from abroad (travel). Six searches as Google shows them in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia (no city set), top 10 organic results, 169 in all: everest base camp trek cost, annapurna circuit trek package, langtang valley trek, poon hill trek, nepal tour package, everest base camp trek. A “Nepal-based operator” is a trekking company whose own site gives a Kathmandu office address. The findings are in our travel agency SEO guide.

Website speed (Part 3). Own websites from the Maps listings (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Daraz and similar links left out), one entry per domain, a fixed random sample of 25 per trade (125 sites). Each homepage was tested once with Lighthouse 13 (mobile, performance only, Google’s default throttling) from Kathmandu. Ten sites didn’t load in the test and aren’t counted. Lab results vary a few points between runs.

Limits. This is one day, one location and a few searches per trade. Results move daily and depend on where the searcher is. Patterns between reviews and position don’t prove cause. We don’t name any business, and we didn’t contact any.

The short version

• Top-ten Maps listings had 126.5 median reviews; positions 21–40 had 57.5. Star ratings barely differ (81% at 4.5+).
• A business’s own website ranked first in 34 of 40 customer searches in Nepal.
• Clinics (38% with no website) and online shops have the most room to grow.
• 91% of the business websites we tested took over 4 seconds to show their main content on a test phone.

If you’d like to know where your own business stands on these measures, take the free test, or see how our SEO services in Nepal work.