Why Has Zagat Score Changed?

[jhoecannon]

I have a customer that owns a local jewelry store. Up until 1 week ago, his business had received 11 reviews...all EXCELLENT reviews...his Zagat score showed 30/30 as it should have.

Now, during the past week, he still shows 11 reviews...all Excellent reviews...but, now, his Zagat score shows 29/30.

Does anybody know what the change may be?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi jhoecannon,

Did you post about this in the Google forum too? Because if that wasn't you then someone else reported something very similar. I barely scanned it so don't remember the details. If that wasn't you, let me know and I can try to find it to see if Google or one of the TCs had an answer. If I remember right I think it was escalated so I can try to find out if Google replies.

But my guess would be they got a negative RATING, not review that pulled their count down. So reviews stayed the same but overall score went down.

 

[jhoecannon]

Linda...no, I didn't post this on Google's forum...I've only posted it here. If you can find that thread on Google's forum, I would sure like to read it. I'll be looking, also.

When you say that their business must have received a "negative rating", where would somebody post such a rating...any idea?

Perhaps you're saying that somebody rated their business as a "0", "1", or "2" ...but, left no explanation as to why...is this what you mean? If that were the case, that's an incomplete review and I wouldn't think Google would even use it. After all, the business owner has no opportunity to respond to such a "negative rating".

jhoecannon

 

[Linda Buquet]

Wow found it - heated and very interesting thread.

OK here it is: ALL Reviews are EXCELLENT! Why is score 29, not 30????? Google math sucks!!? - Google Groups

Here's the important part from Google's own rating doc: We take these ratings, average them, and then multiply by ten to arrive at averaged scores. We then may adjust the overall ratings based on user inputs and other signals to ensure these ratings best reflect the quality of the establishment.

Then Blumenthal said what I said earlier: "There is a simple explanation for many of these situations. Someone left a rating and not a review. Ratings count towards to total but are not shown on the +local page."

Jade in another thread said they take lots of signals into account and it's all calculated by the algo, so not straight addition just based on the reviews.

BUT 29/30 is darned good and to many consumers sounds more believable than 30/30. Google could LOSE all 11 reviews - now that would be something to get worried about. But I would not lose sleep over a 29/30 score.

 

[jhoecannon]

Linda...thanks for finding that thread.

Wow...this has made a lot of business owners mad and I can certainly understand why. My customer, the owner of that jewelry store, relies heavily on his Google+ Local listing and his rating to obtain new business...and, Google is doing nothing to help his business.

Thanks so much!!

jhoecannon