Metrics
Review velocity
Review velocity is the rate at which a business accumulates new reviews over time, usually measured per month.
Velocity matters more than total count for most local rankings and for buyer perception. Forty reviews collected steadily over two years reads as a live business; forty collected in one week reads as a campaign, and sudden spikes are a common trigger for platform filters.
Velocity also decays: a profile whose newest review is fourteen months old signals to a reader that either nothing happens there any more or nobody is asking.
In practice
Aim for a steady, sustainable rate you can hold indefinitely — for most local businesses that is a handful a month, asked for consistently, rather than a quarterly push.
Common questions
- How many reviews per month is normal?
- It depends entirely on transaction volume. The useful benchmark is your own trend line and the profiles of the three competitors ranking above you, not an absolute number.
- Can a spike in reviews hurt me?
- It can. Sudden unexplained spikes are one of the patterns platform filters look for, and filtered reviews are effectively invisible.