Local Search

Review Velocity

Business Owner Office Manager Marketing Manager

Review velocity is the rate at which a business earns new reviews over time, rather than the total it has accumulated. A steady flow of recent reviews signals an active business; a large total that stopped growing two years ago signals the opposite.

Recency matters to searchers as much as to search engines. Most people scan the newest few reviews and the date on them before they read the rating.

Formula

New reviews ÷ Time period

Where It Lives

Google Business ProfileThe reviews that affect map pack position
YelpSignificant in some trades and regions
TrustpilotCommon for service and ecommerce businesses

What Drives It

Whether anyone asks
When in the job the ask happens
How easy the review link is
Response rate to existing reviews

Causal Analysis: Velocity is almost entirely a process variable. Businesses that ask at a fixed point in the job get reviews; businesses that ask when they remember do not, regardless of how good the work is.

Benchmark

A few genuine reviews a month sustains recency for most local businesses. Bursts followed by silence read as campaigns and are worth less than a steady trickle.

Common Mistake

Requesting a batch of reviews all at once before a busy season. A sudden spike after long silence is the pattern review filters are specifically built to catch.

How different roles think about this metric

Each function reads Review Velocity through a different lens and takes different actions when it changes.

Business Owner

The one local ranking factor fixed by an operational habit rather than by spend.

Office Manager

Owns the ask: a fixed point in every job, with a short link, beats remembering to ask.

Marketing Manager

Watch recency and response rate, not just the average star rating.

Common Questions About Review Velocity

Click any question to expand the answer.

Should I reply to reviews?

Yes, to all of them. Replies are visible to every future reader, and a calm reply to a poor review reassures far more people than the review itself worries.

Can I offer a discount for a review?

No. Incentivised reviews breach Google’s policies and risk the review, and sometimes the profile. Asking plainly at the right moment works well enough without it.

Related Metrics

Metrics that are commonly analyzed alongside Review Velocity.

GBP | Google Business Profile Map Pack | Map Pack Local SEO | Local SEO

Role guides that include this metric

See how each role uses Review Velocity in context with the full set of metrics they own.

Business Owner Guide → Office Manager Guide → Marketing Manager Guide →

free, one business day

Want to know what is holding your Review Velocity back?

Give us your website and we will send back the specific pages hurting your Review Velocity, in the order worth fixing. You will have it within one business day, free, with no obligation.

The shops down the street already run on AI.
The data proves it pays.

Auto shops, dental offices, cafés and salons. The local businesses winning right now compete on AI and data. askotter puts those same tools on your side, priced for a business your size.

0% of small businesses already use AI-enabled tools U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2024

0% projected annual growth of the AI market through 2030 Grand View Research

0× more likely to win customers when decisions are data-driven McKinsey Global Institute

$0T AI's projected boost to the global economy by 2030 PwC

The same tools the shops down the street use, from $99/mo.