4 Reviews Gets You Stars Now on Google+ Local?

[Travis Van Slooten]

I thought you needed to have 5 reviews to get those fancy stars to show up and the rating. I saw a couple listings today with only 4 reviews and they had stars and ratings. Has there been a recent change to this I don't know about?

Travis

 

[jtweav]

Not sure. I was just happy when it got down to 5. I've had one of my partner clients at 4 for the last 2 weeks now and he hasn't started showing with stars yet.

Hey and while you are talking about reviews here is fun story about fake review justice in action: Faking Reviews? You Could Get Busted At Any Time | Reputation Management

And if you haven't heard this checkout what happened after Obama got a bear hug in a pizza parlor to their reviews: Obama Bear Hug Leads to a Boost in Online Reviews (Negative and Positive) – ReviewPush

I’m keeping an eye on Mike Blumenthal’s getfivestars.com. But for now I just email past customers from free Mail Chimp and I get at least a 10% response to reviews showing up on Google Places rate. Good enough for my partner clients as their competitors seldom have reviews.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Travis

There's a weird gray area between 4 and 5 reviews, and a 4.8 and 5.0 average rating.

See these two posts:

How Many Reviews to Get the Star Treatment? Somewhere Between 4 and 5 | Understanding Google Places & Local Search

5-Star Review Ratings Return to Google+ Local Pages | LocalVisibilitySystem.com

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Thanks Phil. It sounds like you may or may not get star ratings with 4 reviews. I'm perfectly fine pushing for 5. I just thought it was surprising to see a 4 review listing get a star rating.

Travis

 

[Phil Rozek]

Yeah, it usually takes 5 reviews. 4 is enough maybe 10% of the time.

 

[Gio Greenard]

Hi all,

I have just been looking through some search results, this is what I found for one of my clients.

POSITION 1 Competition- 15 reviews, 102 Google plus in circles, 5.0 Google star rating ( 5 stars appear)

POSITION 2 Client- 35 reviews, 57 Google plus in circles. 4.9 Google star rating. ( 5 stars appear)

Both listings are very similar in nature seo wise, I'm wondering if the "102 Google plus in circles" is the defining factor between the two listings.

I will do a citation check now, but i am pretty sure we have far more.

Note- both listings have reviews from around the web.

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Gio:

I've wondered that myself - if the number of people in your circles makes a difference in rankings. I wish someone would test this. We've been told by Google that they will be using social factors more and more but to what extent?

Travis

 

[jtweav]

If authorship will show for someone with only 5 people in their circles I don't think it matters much yet up hey what do I know. I predict it will matter a lot in the future.