Review recency: why last month's reviews outrank last year's
73% of customers only trust reviews from the last 30 days. Momentum beats totals.
Owners love the lifetime number: 400 reviews, 4.8 stars, years of proof. Customers read a different page. They open the newest reviews, check the dates, and decide from what happened recently. If your last review is from March, March is when your business stopped existing to them.
The window customers actually read
The reader's logic is fair: businesses change. New owner, new chef, new crew. Recent reviews answer the only question that matters, which is what is it like now. The rest of the wall is history. The full set of numbers behind this behavior is in our statistics rundown.
Ranking reads the same signal
Review velocity, the steady arrival of new reviews, feeds the prominence part of local ranking. Reviews overall carry about 16% of Map Pack ranking signal (source: local ranking factor studies · verify before publish), and a listing whose signal is fresh beats an identical one coasting on 2024. The mechanics are in our rankings guide; the practical takeaway is that recency compounds: readers trust you more and Google shows you more.
Momentum beats totals
Twelve reviews spread across a quarter beat two hundred from last year, and they also beat twelve collected in one push after reading an article like this. Bursts look like campaigns, to detection systems and to skimming readers who notice eight reviews with the same date. The pattern you want is boring: one or two a week, forever.
A routine that keeps the window full
Consumer review survey data (recency trust, read-before-visit) · Local ranking factor studies (review signal share) · BrightLocal (reply readership).
Every statistic in this article is a placeholder pending verification against the current edition of its source before publish.