Google's review algorithm weights recency heavily. A business with 12 reviews published in the last 90 days will, in most local search contexts, outrank a business with 200 reviews where the last review arrived eleven months ago. The total volume matters less than the velocity of new reviews.
BrightLocal's annual local consumer survey consistently shows that 73 percent of consumers consider only reviews from the past month to be relevant. A five-year-old review carries almost no weight with either Google's algorithm or the person reading it.
The practical consequence is that a static review profile is a depreciating asset. A business that generated 180 reviews over three years and then stopped asking has a profile whose search visibility is declining every week. Its review count is high. Its recency signal is not.
A competitor in the same postcode with 40 reviews and eight arriving in the last month is, from Google's ranking perspective, the more active and relevant business. It may appear higher in local results despite having a fraction of the total reviews.
For the 180-review business, the solution is not to start over. It is to restart the velocity. Two or three new reviews per month, collected consistently through an automated post-job request, are enough to maintain recency signals and hold ranking position.
For a business that has lost ranking position to a competitor with fewer total reviews, the cause is almost always the same: the competitor is actively collecting and the business is not.
Review count is a snapshot. Review recency is a living signal. One reflects past effort. The other requires a current process. The businesses sitting at the top of local search results in competitive categories are not there because of their total review count. They are there because someone set up a post-job review request and left it running.
Reputation Spark in EveryCatch collects reviews consistently after every job, keeping your recency signal active. Book a free discovery call to see how it works.
