Sources and data

Every statistic we publish, where it appears, who produced it and when. If a figure on this site is not listed here, it should not be on the site — tell us and we will remove it.

Research we quote

47%

As we word it
“47% won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews”
Where it appears
Homepage — Why Google reviews matter · Homepage — FAQ (planned)
Source
Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
Publisher
BrightLocal
Published
11 February 2026
Link
https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
Read it with
Panel of 1,002 US adults. Not a UK sample.

74%

As we word it
“74% only care about reviews from the last three months”
Where it appears
Homepage — Why Google reviews matter
Source
Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
Publisher
BrightLocal
Published
11 February 2026
Link
https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
Read it with
Panel of 1,002 US adults. Not a UK sample.

126% and 93%

As we word it
“Businesses in Google's top three map results get 126% more traffic and 93% more calls, clicks and direction requests than those ranked 4th to 10th.”
Where it appears
Homepage — Why Google reviews matter
Source
Local SEO statistics, item 11
Publisher
SOCi
Published
Read at the SOCi page on 28 September 2026
Link
https://www.soci.ai/blog/local-seo-statistics/
Verified
Checked at source on 28 September 2026. SOCi's wording: "Businesses in the Google 3-pack or local pack receive 126% more traffic and 93% more actions (calls, website clicks, and driving directions) than businesses ranked 4-10."
Also reported by
Search Engine Land, "What is the Google Local Pack? How to rank in the 3-pack" (updated 27 November 2025)
https://searchengineland.com/guide/google-local-pack
Verified at the Search Engine Land page on 28 September 2026 by Dave's chat assistant. Our own checks cannot reach it: Cloudflare returns 403 to scripted requests and a challenge page to an automated browser.

Relevance, distance and prominence

As we word it
“Google says local results are ranked on relevance, distance and prominence, and that how many reviews you have and how positive they are both feed prominence.”
Where it appears
Homepage — Why Google reviews matter · Homepage — FAQ (planned)
Source
Tips to improve your local ranking on Google
Publisher
Google Business Profile Help
Published
Undated help page; retrieved 28 September 2026
Link
https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091

Cost per click by trade and town

As we word it
“The "cost per click" column on each trade page, and the comparison with what one review request costs.”
Where it appears
/google-reviews/plumbers and the other five trade pages
Source
DataForSEO Labs keyword_overview, Google Ads UK (location 2826), USD
Publisher
DataForSEO
Published
Retrieved 2026-09-21 to 2026-09-22
Link
https://dataforseo.com/apis/dataforseo-labs-api

Our own benchmark data

The figures on how many Google reviews you need and in the free review check are not survey answers. They are read from public Google Business Profile listings — the same listings anyone can see on Google Maps. Based on real Google data, updated regularly.

What we count. Only listings with a real street address. Service-area listings with no address are excluded, because a business with no premises is not a competitor a customer walks past.

What “typical” means. We publish the median: half the businesses in that market have fewer reviews, half have more. We do not publish an average, because one listing with several thousand reviews drags an average somewhere no real business sits.

When we refuse to publish. A market needs at least 15 listings before we will show a figure for it. Below that the middle of the list is noise, and a confident number from five businesses is worse than no number.

How fresh it is. Every figure carries the month it was read. Anything older than 120 days drops out rather than being shown as current.

No business is named. We publish the middle, the spread and the count for a market. Which business holds which review count is not ours to publish.

Found something wrong?

If a figure here is out of date, misread or misattributed, email support@drivemore-reviews.com and we will correct or remove it.