What review velocity is, and how to raise it
It is the one review number a small business can move this week, and the one most often confused with a lifetime total.
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Review velocity, in one sentence
Review velocity is the number of new reviews a business earns in a given period, usually counted per month and per platform.
It is a rate, not a total. A business with 400 lifetime reviews and none since spring has a large count and a velocity of zero, and those two facts say opposite things about whether it is still trading well.
Velocity is read alongside its shape rather than on its own. Eighteen reviews spread across a month reads very differently from eighteen that all landed on one Tuesday, and the second pattern is the one a platform's automated systems are built to notice.
Nobody outside Google knows what weight it carries in ranking. What Google does say is that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, which puts a steady rate on the right side of the ledger without licensing any specific claim about how much.
Working out your own velocity
Count the reviews that arrived in a period, per platform, and divide by the months in it. A quarter is long enough to absorb a quiet fortnight and short enough to still be about now.
- Google reviews received, July to September
- 27
- Yelp reviews received, same quarter
- 6
- Months in the period
- 3
Google velocity is 27 divided by 3, which is 9 a month. Yelp velocity is 6 divided by 3, which is 2 a month. Total velocity is 11 a month, and the split matters more than the total: the same 11 concentrated on one platform is a different business to a customer comparing two listings side by side.
Compare the figure against your own previous quarter rather than against an industry benchmark. Published benchmarks for review volume are built from whatever sample the publisher could reach, and a dentist in a market town has nothing to learn from a national chain's average.
Why the rate beats the total
Recency is what a reader actually checks. Somebody choosing between two places at nine on a Friday evening scrolls to the top of the review list and looks at the dates. A page whose newest review is fourteen months old reads as closed, whatever the average says.
Velocity is also the only review number you can move directly. You cannot lift a four year average by much and you cannot make an old one star disappear, but you can ask the next forty customers, and forty asks reliably becomes some reviews.
It has a floor worth knowing about. Below roughly one review a month, a single bad review moves your visible rating and sits at the top of your recent reviews at the same time, and it stays there for weeks because nothing arrives to push it down.
The misconception: a big burst is the goal
The usual advice is to run a push, collect fifty reviews in a fortnight and get the count up.
Bursts are the pattern platforms flag. A profile that averaged two reviews a month and then took fifty in ten days looks identical from the outside whether the cause was a genuine campaign or a purchase, and the systems that sort those two apart are automated and do not explain themselves.
A burst also decays. Reviews collected in one push all age together, so a year later the listing shows a wall of same week dates and nothing recent, which is where the business started. A dull, constant ask beats a campaign on both counts.
Common questions about review velocity
What owners ask once they start counting reviews by month rather than in total.
What is a good review velocity?
There is no published number that would be honest across every trade. The useful comparison is your own previous quarter, and the two or three businesses a customer would actually see beside you in the same map result.
Does review velocity affect Google ranking?
Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, which is a statement about reviews rather than about rate specifically. Nobody outside Google can quantify it, and anybody who offers you a coefficient invented it.
How do I raise velocity without breaking a rule?
Ask every customer rather than a chosen few, and ask close to the visit while the detail is fresh. Do not offer anything in exchange: Google's policy names payment, discounts and free goods or services as prohibited incentives.
Should I count my replies as part of velocity?
No. Velocity counts reviews coming in. How many of them you answered is a separate figure, and it is measured as a review response rate.
Does deleting a listing reset velocity?
It resets the count on that listing and touches nobody's memory of the business. It is almost never the right move, because the reviews you lose include every good one.
Other numbers that move when velocity moves
Keep the rate up
A steady ask, without the spreadsheet
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