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Research

Original research on small business reviews.

The review-software category has functionally no publication-grade research. We're fixing that. Ten reports published — more in progress.

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New research, when it drops

We publish analysis on review routing, local SEO, consumer trust, FTC compliance, and reputation management for service businesses. Subscribe to receive each new report as it publishes — no marketing, no sequences.

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Published reports

Google ReviewsLocal SEOTrust Signals

Google Reviews and the Local Trust Stack

Google didn't just win the review platform wars — it absorbed the entire decision process. For local service businesses, understanding how that happened explains almost everything about what to do next.

7 min readRead report
Local SEOReview VelocityGoogle Algorithm

Review Velocity and Local SEO: The Signal Most Businesses Miss

A business with 400 reviews from 2021 is losing ground to competitors who got 80 reviews last quarter. Review velocity — not total count — is the signal Google's local algorithm weights for freshness and relevance.

6 min readRead report
Review PlatformsRouting StrategyPlatform Comparison

Which Review Platforms Actually Matter for Service Businesses

Not every review platform is worth your customers' attention equally. This report maps platform authority to trade type so you can route review requests where they move the needle.

6 min readRead report
Revenue ImpactStar RatingsConsumer Behavior

The Revenue Math Behind Your Star Rating

A Harvard Business School study found that a one-star improvement on Yelp led to a 5–9% revenue increase for independent restaurants. The mechanism behind that number applies to every service business with a public rating.

7 min readRead report
Review RequestsTimingCustomer Experience

When to Ask: The Review Request Timing Window

Customer satisfaction peaks in the minutes and hours after a successful service experience. Review requests delivered in that window convert at dramatically higher rates than those sent days later, once the emotional signal has faded.

5 min readRead report
SMSEmailQR CodeReview Collection

SMS vs. Email vs. QR: A Review Collection Channel Analysis

SMS reaches customers with a 95%+ open rate. Email reaches 20%. QR codes require the customer to initiate. The channel you use to request reviews is not a minor variable — it determines whether your request is read at all.

6 min readRead report
FTCComplianceReview GatingLegal

The FTC Review Rule: What Service Businesses Must Know

The FTC's October 2024 rule on consumer reviews carries penalties of up to $51,744 per violation. The rule prohibits review gating — but explicitly permits routing. Here is what the distinction means in practice.

7 min readRead report
Consumer PsychologyStar RatingsDecision Science

The Psychology of Star Ratings: Thresholds That Drive Decisions

Star ratings are not read linearly. Consumers apply categorical logic to a continuous scale, creating threshold effects where small numerical differences produce large behavioral changes.

6 min readRead report
Local SEOGoogle AlgorithmReview Freshness

Review Recency vs. Total Volume: What Google Actually Prioritizes

An old, large review profile can lose local pack positions to a newer competitor with fewer but more recent reviews. Understanding why Google weights freshness helps businesses build a review strategy that compounds over time.

6 min readRead report
Reputation RecoveryStar RatingsReview Strategy

From 3.8 to 4.6: Patterns in Reputation Recovery

Recovering a damaged star rating is a volume problem. The math is unforgiving: moving a 3.8 to 4.5 with 60 existing reviews requires roughly 90 new 5-star reviews. Understanding the arithmetic is the first step.

7 min readRead report
Methodology

How we research

Reports draw on published academic research, regulatory documents, and industry surveys from named sources. We cite every claim that is not self-evidently general knowledge.

Platform data referenced in reports is aggregated at the metric level only, never customer-identifiable. When we use GoodMarks usage data, we say so explicitly.

We do not publish reports based on AI-generated statistics. If a number exists in a report, it comes from a citable source or from labeled GoodMarks platform data.

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