Star Rating

Your star rating is the averaged score, from one to five stars, calculated from all the reviews on your Google Business Profile. It appears prominently next to your business name in Search and Maps and is often the first quality signal a customer notices.

The rating shapes decisions instantly. Studies of local search behavior consistently show that people filter out businesses below a certain threshold, frequently around four stars, before reading a single word of a review. A strong average widens the pool of customers willing to consider you at all.

Because the rating is an average, both quantity and quality matter. A single bad review weighs heavily when you have only a few reviews, but its impact shrinks as your total grows, which is another reason steady review velocity is worth building.