How many Google reviews do you need?

Your town's number

Pick your business type and town. We publish a figure only where at least 15 businesses with premises were checked within the last 120 days.

Questions people ask

How many Google reviews do I need?

There is no single number: it depends on your type of business and your town. The typical business in the markets we measure has anywhere from 6 to 262 Google reviews, so the figure that applies to you is the one for your own type and town. Beat it and you have more reviews than half the businesses near you.

How many 5 star reviews to cancel a 1 star?

It depends on your average, not your count: (rating − 1) ÷ (5 − rating) five-star reviews, rounded up. At 4.6 that is 9, at 4.8 it is 19, at 4.9 it is 39. The higher your rating, the more a single 1-star costs to undo, because each 5-star can only add a smaller amount above your average.

How many 5 star reviews do you need to go up on Google?

To lift a displayed rating by 0.1, a business with 40 reviews at 4.6 needs 14 more five-star reviews; with 200 reviews it needs 67. Your rating and your position are different questions, though. To move up among the businesses near you, review count matters more than rating, because local listings sit close together on rating and far apart on count.

What is a good number of Google reviews?

Good is relative to the businesses you appear next to, which is why there is no one good number: the typical count runs from 10 for builders to 132 for estate agents. A count above the typical figure for your own type and town is good; above the top-third line is where a listing starts to stand out against them.

How does Google calculate review scores?

Google describes the displayed rating as a plain average of all the star ratings on the listing, shown to one decimal place. It publishes no weighting by age or length, and a rating left without any text counts the same as one with a review written out. Reviews Google removes as policy violations drop out of the average. Position in the map results is a separate calculation Google does not publish; review count and rating are among its inputs, alongside distance and relevance.

How do you calculate a 5 star rating?

Add up every rating and divide by the number of reviews. 12 five-stars and 3 four-stars is 72 ÷ 15 = 4.8. To find how many five-star reviews take you from your current average A with n reviews to a target T, the formula is n × (T − A) ÷ (5 − T), rounded up. The calculator at the top of this page does the arithmetic.

Is 4.2 a good Google rating?

It sits below where most local listings are: 86% of the businesses we measure are rated 4.5 or higher, and 67% are at 4.8 or higher. Because the displayed rating is a plain average, moving 4.2 to 4.5 from 40 reviews takes 24 five-star reviews. Ratings bunch tightly in local search, so a rating alone rarely separates businesses; the review count does.